The Heart & The Hollow
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: Tony didn't know what to expect when he got the letter telling him that he had a kid in japan. And wants to meet her. I suck at summaries. just read the story. Fem Ichigo. no pairing yet. new chap 14.
1. Chapter 1

It all started with a letter and a medium sized brown box lying on the coffee table in front of him.

He'd finished reading the letter hours ago and had simply been sitting there in the dark for the better part of the evening, well into the early morning hours- just staring at the stupid thing as if it were a bomb or something.

And for all anyone else knew, it very well could have been one.

To a man like Tony Stark, the contents of the box were probably even _more_ life altering than the contents of the letter that he'd already read.

And this was how his friends, and fellow Avengers found him early the next morning around five am. Sitting on the couch, staring at the box. His expression holding a wealth of knowledge, concern, anxiety, sadness and just a slight touch of something akin to _joy_.

Happiness, maybe?

Which was why no one seemed to understand why he didn't simply open the damned thing and peek inside.

Steve and Bucky were the first ones to join him in the common room, followed a little later by Natasha. All of whom had already gone about their usual morning routines and were beginning to start working on everyone's breakfast.

When Clint and Bruce finally mosied in and grabbed some coffee to help them wake up a little bit more before any of them began to even try to tackle the _reason's_ behind the box and just why Tony was staring at it like a fucking zombie.

Finally, as the first rays of light began to filter through the large windows of the room, Clint finally decided to say something. "So...Christmas came early this year, I see."

"I don't think that's a Christmas present Clint." Bucky said as Steve turned his head to peer over his shoulder at the short brunette across the room. He didn't think the box was Christmas present either. But until Tony finally bothered to open it- he and the others would probably remain curious for a while.

"Boss, Rhodey is here." Friday chimed in. Tony didn't even twitch. He didn't even speak.

Well, not really anyways. Did, "Myaahsth" count as an actual word or was that simply zombie Tony speak for brains? Steve wondered as Rhodey suddenly came tearing into the room looking frantic.

"Tony! I got you're nineteen phone calls and I came just as soon as I could- So...now that I'm here what's the problem?" The man asked, trying to hide his own anxiety as he took several deep breaths and waited for a response.

And when he didn't get one right away, he shot the lot of them a questioning look and mouthed the words, _What's wrong_ _with him? _As if they would know something.

Under normal circumstances he wouldn't have been wrong. Tony wasn't usually able to hide things from any of them very well. And there were at least _three_ incredibly good intel gatherers in the room with him. Well okay, four if one bothered any to count Bruce.

"Tony?" Rhodey said hesitantly as he slowly inched his way over to the man and then finally managed to seat himself next to him as Tony wordlessly picked up the letter and absently handed it to him. Rhodey looked down at it for a second and then started scanning it to see if it could somehow explain the state of suspended duh that his friend was seemingly stuck in.

He nearly had his eyes pop right out of his head when he read the words, _You have a daughter. _

_"Holy shit."_ He muttered loud enough for everyone in the room to pause what they were doing as he continued to read and kept muttering the same words over and over before finally falling silent and just sitting there next to Tony staring at the box too.

"Uh...guys- I think we just lost Rhodey." Bruce said as he pointed at the two who were now weirdly communicating through various, zombie-esque sounds.

"Your kidding." Was all that Steve could manage to say as he turned his head to look at the two men across the room. Sure enough, it did look like Rhodey had joined Tony in...whatever the hell this was?

A shocked daze?

An actual honest to god zombie virus-_ shit_, he needed to start watching more than The Walking Dead with Bucky and Clint during the weekends. Because suddenly Steve's mind was turning to mush and he thought he'd survive a zombie apocalypse.

In truth, if one ever occurred, Bucky would outlast him.

And Clint would likely get fed to the zombies by Bucky, first thing, because that's just how he rolled. Something about getting rid of the annoying people first?

Finally after watching the two men interact for nearly five more minutes, Bucky let out a loud sigh and muttered, "That's it. I can't take anymore of this." And then stood up and dug a knife that he carried with him at all times- probably a habit left over from his days as a former Hydra assassin- out of his pocket and then flicked it open and approached the two.

Steve was about to tell him not to do anything stupid, but let's face it- Bucky tended to sometimes do stupid shit. Not only that but Clint and Nat both shushed him because they wanted to see what would happen.

The _sadists._

Tony only managed to let out a squawk while Rhodey...must have maybe thought that Bucky was going to stab him or something because he threw himself off of the couch the moment the man rounded the thing, and gave Bucky all the time that he needed to cut the tape holding the box closed and then stood back with a satisfied look on his face and put the knife up.

"There now let's see what's in this." He said happily as he then picked up the box and started to slowly dig around in it before Tony finally snapped out of his funk and snatched it right out of his hands and gave him a dark glare before setting it back down where it had been sitting for the past night.

"Stay the hell out of it Barnes." Tony growled in a warning tone before then sitting back down and resumed staring at it as Friday chimed in,

"Boss, Pepper has the jet ready for you to use as soon as you snap out of it and get packed. She also wanted to know if you'd talked to anyone to see if someone would go with you."

"Friday, why would Tony need to talk to any of us about going somewhere with him?" Nat asked curiously.

"He has a very important meeting with someone very speciel and he's more than a little bit..._shell shocked_." The last two words were giggled by the AI before Clint asked who it was that Tony had such an important meeting with.

Nothing in the world could have prepared any of them for the AI's amused reply.

Which was probably why Clint wound up on the floor in a dead faint while the rest of them merely stood around in stupefied disbelief until Nat finally regained her senses and simply cracked up with hysterical laughter.

Tony Stark- their Tony- billionaire, genius, playboy, Avenger...was a _father_.

* * *

It took them all over an hour to pack and grab some of Tony's things and then leave the tower to go to the airport. No words were needed, nor spoken once everyone was in the car. To be perfectly honest, none were really needed.

Tony was still...zombified? And in shock?

And the rest of them were simply too goddamned curious to let an event like this slide by any means.

I mean, Tony was a dad! They knew that the man had a record of sleeping around and had often joked about how he needed to be more careful with whom his pent his nights with- so naturally now that nature had taken it's course they were all dying to meet the kid.

Friday hadn't really divulged any further details apart from Tony being a father.

But she had told them where they were going was a place in Japan called Karakura Town.

It was a town located about fifty miles from Tokyo, and had a population of more than forty eight thousand people. So it was a fairly big place. They'd googled it just to figure out what they were heading into since they'd never heard of the place before. And among the Google searches they had found a shit ton of really, really interesting articles on the place being a hot bed for odd occurrences, monster attacks, mysterious murders and deaths and disappearances ect.

And along with more than a handful of those articles were pictures of unexplained 'terrorist' attacks on local schools- and children. And in those same articles, the same name popped up hundreds of times.

_Ichigo Kurasaki. _

There had also been a few pictures in the articles of the girl, but nothing updated since most of the articles were _years_ old. Still, most of the articles had stated that wherever disaster struck- the girl tended to be.

Steve and Bucky wondered if the girl was a bad guy. And Clint and Nat wanted to meet her and take her hand. Apparently they had found a YouTube video of her doing something and had been impressed.

Bruce didn't care one way of the other, he was leaning over on zombie Tony's shoulder sleeping.


	2. Chapter 2

A day later-

Everyone stood outside of the...well, in an effort not to mince words- it was a shack. And simply stared at it for a few moments before Nat asked Tony in an incredulous tone, "This is where your kid lives?"

Tony blinked at the should-have-been-condemned building and tried to find the words to say something. But kept coming up blank. In all honesty when he had heard from Issun Kurosaki- the man that had raised his kid- he had heard that Ichigo was actually pretty well off money wise and was the heiress of _three_ separate families.

The Starks.

The Shiba.

And her late mother's family. But he couldn't really recall their names at the moment. No- right now he was just a little bit busy being shell shocked by the absolute _horror_ that was his daughter's home.

"Anybody else feel that we'd be doing the kid a favor if we burned the place down?" Bucky asked offhandedly. Everyone but Steve raised their hands but quickly dropped them again when the door to the...shack opened and a couple of kids walked out of the place carrying a box each as they heard someone call out from inside of the house.

"Be careful with those boxes! They have my glass china in them!"

"Don't worry Ichigo, we'll take care of you're dishes!" The small girl with sandy colored hair called back as the black haired girl muttered as she passed them.

"Yeah, we'll take care of them- by throwing the stupid things right in the trash."

"Karin! Don't say such things! You know, just because Ichigo recently found out that she was our half sister doesn't mean that you can act mean towards her. She inherited those dishes from her grandma!" The sandy haired girl admonished.

"Yeah, yeah. Come on, we need to hurry up and head back home and check on dad." Karin? said in a bored tone.

"And I need to start dinner too."

"Are you still planning to make curry?"

"Well, it is Ichigo's favorite dish." The sandy haired girl said with a smile as she passed Tony and the others. Everyone held themselves perfectly still until the two were gone before finally deciding to move to go knock on the door so that Tony could finally meet his kid.

Tony was hesitant for obvious reasons. After all, he had missed almost nineteen years of Ichigo's life and wasn't exactly sure just how well received he'd be by her. The others...they hesitated because they wanted to see what Tony decided to do.

If he decided to knock and introduce himself to the girl- she'd become a permanent fixture in all of their lives for good or ill from now on. And if he decided to walk away- then he may never get the chance to have any kind of relationship with her.

Tony's heart was in his mouth and his palms were sweaty as he seemed to finally make up his mind and started to reach up to knock on the questionably decrepit door to the shack when said door swung open, causing him to let out a weird squawking sound as a tall, exotically beautiful black haired young woman stepped out of the place wiping her hands on a dirty piece of cloth and said, "You know, the lot of you have been standing outside of my home for the better part of ten minutes now. If you have something to say then you should just say it."

"Uh...o-oh right. S-Sorry ma'am," Steve stammered out while Nat shook Tony in an effort to help the man find his tongue. "W-We didn't mean to disturb you or anything but ya see. Our friend here-" Steve looked over his shoulder at Tony and saw that Nat had been reduced to slapping the man in an effort to get him to snap out of it.

And Steve found himself pausing to wonder _what the hell was wrong_ _with the man_ as the young woman stepped further out of the shack and narrowed her eyes at the man before then brushing past Steve and walking over to Nat and snatched the woman's wrist in a bruising grip as she growled, _"Knock it off."_

Nat blinked at the woman but did as she was told as the woman then shifted her attention back to Tony and reached out and grasped him by the shoulders and then hissed at them, "Can't you people tell that your friend is having a panic attack?"

Nat blinked again but said nothing as Steve, Bucky and Clint all looked a little more closely at Tony. Sure enough, the man was having some sort of episode. Likely triggered by his anxiety about meeting his kid.

The woman stood there for several minutes alternating between coaxing Tony back to his senses and _growling_ at them all for missing the warning signs until finally Tony started to collapse, his entire body going weak in the knees and he might have fallen if not for the woman easily catching him and picking him up in her arms.

Which wasn't exactly an easy feat for an ordinary person- much less a woman- considering how much muscle the man had on his body from lugging around his Iron Man armor all the time.

Steve started to walk over and take Tony from her before she accidentally wound up dropping him, but then paused and simply studied her when she didn't seem to struggle with holding him up or anything.

It was...well, weird really.

Even Nat couldn't do what this woman was doing. And the two of them had very similar builds. But even so, Natasha wouldn't have been able to lift Tony like this woman was.

"Alright. Looks like your friend has decided to check out on us for a little bit," The woman said as she carefully shifted Tony in her arms so that his head was resting on one of her shoulders before then suggesting, "Why don't all of you come inside for a while. I think I still have some food and drinks for guests, and you can hang out while your friend sleeps it off."

"O-Oh! We don't want to be any trouble or anything." Bruce said awkwardly. The woman merely looked at him and slowly shook her head and smiled.

"You won't be. Besides- this isn't even the first time that this has happened _today_. So come on." She said as she ushered them all inside of her home and then walked off to put Tony in the back, where they were assuming the bedroom was before she returned a few moments later.

"I think he should be okay back there. I opened a window so that he could get some fresh air while he rests."

"Thank you. It's...really kind of you to do this for us." Clint said politely.

"No problem. Stranger crash here regularly," The woman said in an unconcerned manner as she walked over to the kitchen and started to pull out some plastic glasses and stuff and then asked, "Is tea okay with you guys? I have several kinds."

"Tea is fine, thanks." Bucky said with a smile.

She nodded her head slowly and then asked. "Okay, what kind do you want? I have some Chai spice, vanilla lavender, lavender and orange blossom, rose and peony, and honeysuckle."

"Oh! I want some honeysuckle!" Clint said, practically jumping around in place.

"Chai spice for me." Bruce said.

"Can you mix some of them together?" Nat asked curiously. And when the woman nodded her head she then grinned and asked if she could have some rose, peony and honeysuckle.

Steve and Bucky both exchanged and look and shrugged before one said, "I'll have Chai spice too."

And the other simply said awkwardly, "And I'll have...vanilla, lavender, and honeysuckle," Steve looked at Bucky oddly once he told the woman what he wanted causing his friend to practically bristle and say defensively, "What? They sound nice. So they probably smell nice too."

Their drinks took the better part of ten minutes or so, during which Steve and the other's introduced themselves to the woman and learned that she was the person that they had come with Tony to meet. Her name was also familiar from the articles that Steve and Bucky had found online.

_Ichigo Kurosaki._


	3. Chapter 3

Once everyone had their tea and some food was set out for them all- some ham, turkey, chicken deli meat sandwich stuff that they could put together themselves with all the fixin's, and cookies and really nice looking pastries with raspberry and strawberry jam filling that everyone hesitantly dug in while Bucky asked, "So...you live here?" Causing everyone to freeze up a little bit and give him panicky looks as they waited for her to reply, hoping that he hadn't offended her with his question.

Tony would have all of their butts for target practice if he had.

"I used too." They all breathed a collective sigh of relief before then hearing her say in an offhanded manner, "I sort of got tired of random people kicking the door down at two and three a.m every other morning and waving weapons around in my face. So I moved."

Bucky made a weird sound and slowly turned his head to look at him, wide eyed and worried. Steve could empathize. But when Bucky started to insistently tap out morse code on the table with his fingertip- well, that's when shit usually went south.

_We have to remove her. She's in danger here. _

Steve responded with a, _Situation is delicate. Wait and see what happens._

And then both men jumped a little bit when Nat tapped out, _You're both dumbasses. She won't take being removed from here kindly. It's best to leave her alone._

Both men visibly raised their hackles at the mere thought of leaving anybody- much less some pretty little thing who was kin to Tony- in such a place where people could kick down the door at any minute and start waving weapons around. Because neither of them were comfortable with leaving her alone.

"S-So if you don't live here...um..." Bruce started to ask, but paused to mull over the rest of his question. He was worried that it would make her uncomfortable to answer. And really, he didn't want to come across as a creeper.

"I live elsewhere. I just used this place as a workshop for when I wanted to spend a few night's away from home and get some actual work done," She said with a smile. "I kept the fridge semi stocked with food, some cookware and dishes too. And I even kept the bed and some clothing just in case I decided to crash here."

"O-Oh. That's...really?"

She made a humming sound and started to nod her head when all of a sudden her phone went off. They all watched as her relaxed demeanor changed automatically, and she tensed up and dug out her phone and then flipped it open and pressed the speaker button.

"What's up Mrs. Yamamoto?"

There was a garbled panicky sounding sob from the other end of the line that had the woman's expression shifting to something murderous in moments as she grabbed a knife from the kitchen and then snatched her phone up off of the table and handed it to Bruce and quickly said, "I need you to talk to her and tell her that I'm coming. Do what you can to help calm her down. If any of the rest of you have cells- call the police and an ambulance too. She has a really bad heart condition and is in her late seventies. And will likely need to be checked out."

"Huh?" Was all that Bruce could manage before Bucky and Steve were up on their feet along with Nat and Clint.

"Where are you going?"

"To find her. Something must be really wrong if she's calling me."

"You can't just walk the streets armed with a knife! What if you get arrested?"

"No one around these parts will care if I'm carrying a weapon. Especially give how late it's getting. Now if you'll excuse me- I have a little damsel in distress that needs help."

"Wait! Let me, Bucky and Clint come with you! We could cover more ground."

"You could also get _injured_ or_ killed_ because you don't know the area and the people. It's best if you stay put right here and just wait. This won't take me longer than a fifteen minutes."

"B-But what if you get hurt or run into trouble?!"

Ichigo snorted, "The likelihood of me running into anything that I'd need help with is practically zero around here. So just hang out here and try not to get all wound up. If Mrs. Yamamoto is close by then I'll be bringing her back with me. And she'll need the people around her to be _calm_. I'll be really pissed if she's hurt. But I'll be even more pissed if she has another heart attack so soon after her last one, understand?"

_"We understand, Angel."_ Nat said in Russian. Not really expecting the girl to understand her much less respond.

_"Sorry. But I'm not an angel."_ Ichigo replied smoothly in perfect Russian, startling both Nat and Bucky as she moved over to the door and quickly slipped outside before anyone else could say anything.

"Should we go after her?" Clint asked worriedly.

"I dunno. She was pretty adamant that we stay put." Steve said with a frown before he turned his head to consult Bucky on what they should do when Nat pointed out,

"He left out one of the windows a minute or so after Ichigo left."

"Huh?!"

"Crap. Now we have to hunt him and the kid down."

"Not really," Bruce finally chimed in. He'd been speaking to the woman that had called the kid for the past few minutes in an effort to calm her down. "I think she just found the lady. She's swearing up a blue streak in Arabic, Russian, German, Italian and a few other languages that I've never even _heard_ before."

"But she found her?"

"Yeah. Oh- it sort of sounds like she found Bucky too. I can hear him swearing up a blue streak too."

"What the hell did she do? Stab him?"

"No. I heard him growling something about her needing to let go of his ear. And then he yelped and shouted at her to let go of his hair." Bruce said with a slightly amused look on his face as Steve looked like he was caught between laughing at Bucky's misfortune and sputtering in outrage as he heard Bucky shouting from somewhere outside.

_"Ouch! Hey! That fucking hurts, woman! I said fucking lemme go already!"_

Steve face palmed as Bruce slowly hung up Ichigo's phone and then set it on the table a few moments before the door swung open and the woman stepped back into the house carrying a little old lady in much the same way that she had carried Tony merely an hour or so before, while dragging Bucky in behind her by a fistful his hair.

The former Winter's Soldier was a little bit of a comical sight while he was all stooped over, being partially led/dragged by his hair by a slip of a woman- his expression all _dark_ and _mutinous _almost like a little kid that had just suffered a chastising from his momma.

In all actuality it was pretty damn hard _not_ to laugh at. But Steve somehow managed by biting the inside of his cheek, _hard_, while he saw the wheels in his buddies mind turning.

Probably plotting Ichigo's untimely demise.

Clint suddenly let out a bark of laughter that had Bucky suddenly zeroing in on the man with an murderous glare before snarling at the blond, "You do realize that I can make you disappear and never get caught."

Clint abruptly shut up as Bucky _growled_ something foul under his breath at Ichigo as he was all but viciously pulled over to the small couch up against the far wall and shoved down onto it by the woman.

Steve's lips twitched slightly as he caught the look of anger on Bucky's face as the man looked like he was about to jump up and try to strangle the woman as she deposited the elder in his lap. Causing him to freeze up like a statue and cast a wide eyed look down at the little white haired lady curled up there and then back at Ichigo.

"I know that you're pissed at me, but do you think you can maybe see if you an coax her to calm down. I'm going to go and get her some medicine for her blood pressure and maybe something for those damned bruises. You can slap me once she's okay."

"Huh?" Bucky said unintelligibly. Not really able to understand why she had just said that. Especially since despite how mad he was from being led around by his hair, he'd _never_ hit a lady. It just wasn't done.

It was considered abusive and cruel.

Bucky's eyes flickered helplessly to Ichigo's retreating back and then over to Steve, his face ashen and panicked. "Stevie. I-I wouldn't."

"It's alright Buck," Steve said in a calm and soothing tone. "I don't think she actually meant anything by it. She was probably just trying to make you feel better and went about it wrong."

"Y-You don't think that she really thinks that do you? That I would hit her? Because I wouldn't! She could pull my hair out until I was bald and-"

"Calm down. I'm sure that she didn't mean it the way that it sounded."

"I wouldn't be too sure," Clint said after a moment or so of hesitation, catching both Steve and Bucky's gazes. "There's something wrong with the way she acts so casual about stuff. Remember the way she mentioned the break-in's and how people would wave weapons in her face? What if she really thinks that Bucky will slap her? What if the reason that she's unbothered by it is a form of disassociation?"

"Would she even be able to function right now if she were like that?" Nat asked curiously. Clint shrugged his shoulders helplessly unable to really answer the question as Ichigo finally re appeared and walked over to where Bucky was sitting and cast him a peculiar look and then turned her attention to the old lady.

"Mrs. Yamamoto, can you hear me?"

The old woman shifted slightly in Bucky's lap and turned her head ever so slightly to look at the younger woman.

Ichigo gave her a sweet smile and muttered, "Hey precious. Are you feeling okay enough to take something for the bruises and for you're heart?" The woman sniffled softly and nodded her head.

Ichigo moved to sit on the small coffee table directly across from Bucky and held out her hand and waited patiently for the woman to take the tablets from her and swallowed them dry. "Good girl. Now do you wanna try and tell me what happened to you? Did you see anything that the police can use in a report?"

"H-He took my wedding ring and pearls." The woman stammered out after a moment or so. The moment that she mentioned her wedding ring, Ichigo's eyes flickered down to her hand and something dark flitted through her expression before she asked.

"Did he have to pry the ring off? Cause it looks like you're finger might be a little bit broken."

The woman nodded her head and Ichigo huffed softly and then turned around to ask if anyone had called for an ambulance. Steve, Clint and Bruce all shifted from foot to foot awkwardly before Nat chimed in that she called. Someone was on the way- it might take them a little bit.


	4. Chapter 4

Ichigo sat and talked to the old woman for the better part of fifteen minutes, trying not to ignore her in her present condition and occasionally casting apologetic glances at Bucky and the others to let them know that she knew that they were still there. She wasn't altogether ignoring them.

It became obvious very quickly that the old woman worried about Ichigo's wellbeing.

Especially when she asked her if her bullet wounds from earlier in the week were still paining her.

Everyone had gone totally still upon hearing this, and didn't so much as move a muscle even to breathe for a the longest time while Ichigo visibly flinched ever so slightly and then let out a nervous sounding laugh.

And then quickly stood and moved over to the table and grabbed a couple of cookies from it and then unceremoniously _stuffed_ one in the lady's mouth when she tried to tell Bucky that Ichigo was a little bit_ infamous_ around the neighborhood.

However she couldn't manage to tell anybody anything as long as her mouth was full.

Once the cookie was gone, the woman tenaciously tried again.

"You know, Ichigo is a really nice little gal," Mrs. Yamamoto started, "I've known her since she was six years old and she started helping me and some of the other elders across the street."

Everyone in the room pushed aside the mention of the woman having been shot for the moment, not wanting to cause a scene in front of the elder and smiled a little bit at the mental image of a miniature version of the young woman as a little kid, holding some random elder's hand and leading them across the road.

It was an adorable image.

"She used to do chores for us too. She would help out with some of our gardens, fix things, build fences, shovel walkways during the winter- she was always a really hard worker."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, she used to work so hard that her hands were bruised and _bleeding _before she even bothered to quit." The woman said sagely before going on. "She's always been a good girl. Even when she was younger and going through her delinquent phase- she was still a real sweet girl."

"Is that so?" Bucky muttered, somehow not really all that surprised by the fact that the dark haired beauty had at one point been a delinquent. She certainly had the totally unrepentant personality down.

"Yes. She used to leave school early just so that she could help carry stuff home for some of our neighbors..."

"No- not that. I mean, what kind of stuff she do? Skip school? Spray paint buildings? Steal?"

The elder frowned for a moment before saying, "Oh. Oh! That, no- I don't think the girl has what it takes to deface a building and steal anything. But I know that she skipped a bunch of school though. Especially when one of her friends was in trouble."

"Oh?"

"I saw her beat about a dozen or so local gang members down by the bridge once. She was so mad that she put each of them in the hospital for going after one of her friends. They had the poor fella tied to a chair by some metal cables and was going to drown him in the river."

"Then it's a good thing that she beat them up then." Steve said in a slightly impressed tone as he cast a peculiar look at the young woman. She caught his eye for a second, and then quickly averted her eyes in an almost shy manner. Earning a small chuckle of amusement from him.

He'd always disliked bullies. And from the sound of things, Ichigo seemed to dislike them too.

That was good. It would be something that they could bond over later.

"She was always fighting someone. Muggers, rapists, and such. I wouldn't swear to it, but I think she even worked with the police and some military guys off and on between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. All of them are pretty tight knit group and they tend to come visit her often. It's thanks to her and the rest of them that several years back, some foreigners weren't able to cause a nuclear disaster inside of the city."

_"Huh?"_

"It was really neat- she came out of nowhere and clotheslines one of them and knocked him flat on his-" She was interrupted by sirens sounding from outside and looked towards the door as Ichigo jumped up and practically ran for the door and opened it and called out,

"It's about time! She's telling crap on me again!"

The people who walked through the door were laughing and grinning from ear to ear as they took a moment to pat Ichigo either on the back or the head in an overly friendly and affectionate manner before moving over to Mrs. Yamamoto, and took a few minutes to check her out as one of the local police officers slowly ambled in.

"Kurosaki! I shoulda known that it was you that called. We get more phone calls from you than we do to pick up bodies for the morgue. Speaking of, since I'm here- where were you yesterday night?"

"Uh...watching the back of my eyelids?"

The man laughed softly and shook his head at her, "That's a terrible alibi."

"And no less true. You have no idea how much sleep I miss out on a daily basis."

The guy laughed again before opening his arms and stepping forward to hug her. "That's fair. So how's my favorite suspect doing?" He asked kindly as he stepped away from her and crossed his arms across his chest.

"I'm...alive." The woman said awkwardly.

"I can see that. And I suppose that you'll be staying alive a little bit longer. It'd be sad if I didn't get anymore calls from the local hero."

Ichigo snorted. "Yeah right. Admit it, as much as you'd miss me, you would rejoice in the peace and quiet."

"I admit to nothing. And the crime rates would go back up. Seriously, how is it that one slip of a woman can scare the criminal elements so badly that they _actually_ fear running into you in dark alleys and such?"

Ichigo shrugged her shoulders and said. "Dunno. But I'll ask someone the next time I run into them and then we'll both know."

The man snorted before saying slowly, "Okay...lemme know what you find out." Ichigo gave him a mock salute before he then asked, "So what are the Avenger's doing in you're former home?"

"T-The who?" Ichigo asked with a frown. The officer's jaw dropped open in horror and he squeaked out,

"Please tell me that your joking with me."

Ichigo merely blinked at him and he grabbed her by the arm and quickly jerked her outside and started yelling, "The Avenger's Ichigo! Earth's mightiest hero's- well, next to you that is. They're government sanctioned super human's and such!"

"Oh. That's nice." Ichigo said as she re entered the house, still looking as unconcerned as ever as the guy followed close at her heels.

"So what the hell are they doing in you're home?" He demanded pointing to them.

"Former."

"Yeah whatever- just answer the question!"

"One of their friends had a panic attack. So I grabbed him and made them come inside until he's feeling better."

The man made a funny little growling sound in the back of his throat before muttering, "Are you fucking shitting me? You didn't even know who they were and you let them in your home? How do you know that they weren't hired by someone to capture or kill you? Do you know how many people in all of the governments in the known world wanna get their hands on you for study, brain washing and such?!"

"Keigo..." Ichigo said in a dangerously low warning tone.

The man paused in mid rant and paled significantly before muttering in horror/disbelief, "_Oh shit,_ I just outed you. You're supposed to stay a secret and I fucking outed you."

"Yes. Yes you did. Thanks for that." Heavy sarcasm laced her tone as the man practically turned to all of them, and pushed the woman behind him and yelled,

"You can't have her! Ichigo's a good girl and my best friend!"

"You just outed me as a _threat_ Keigo- somehow I really don't think that they'll let that slide."

"B-But we'd all be dead if it wasn't for you! For fuck's sake you didn't _ask_ to be like you are. You don't even like you're abilities! You've tried to kill yourself so many times, because of them and the threat that they pose to the world, that I've lost count of_ all_ of the hospital trips!"

"Keigo-"

"And then there are the times that you did kill yourself! How many dozen's of times did you lay you're life down for others, huh? Five? Ten? I lost count after _thirty_ times! And each time you did it was for the sake of others! Your family, you're friends- the helpless and the weak! For god's sake you've _killed_ yourself so many times that the damage can't even be reversed now! Your heart, your lungs, you're organs- even you're brain were all goddamn _scrambled_ because you used your abilities to try and rip yourself to pieces from the inside out!"

_"Keigo!"_ Ichigo practically shouted at him, causing the man to abruptly stop screaming and look at her wide eyed. "I-It's after five. You're shift ended at four fourty. Just...go home to you're wife already." He opened his mouth to say something but abruptly snapped his jaw closed with an audible click before heaving a sigh and muttering,

"Yeah. I-I should do that." And then slowly made his way to the door and paused just long enough to cast a regretful look at her before slipping out and gently closing the door behind him before Tony's voice sounded form the hallway, causing nearly everyone to jump.

"Well...that was...something."

Ichigo turned her head in his direction for a moment as the man stepped out into the open, frowning at her as his dark eyes studied her.

"Tony, how long have you been standing back there?" Bruce asked as he cast a worried look at the woman.

"Ten minutes." Ichigo replied before the man could.

"Yeah, just long enough to know that the lot of us_ really_ need to talk."

"I'd really rather not-" Ichigo started, but was cut off by Tony's quick.

"You don't really have a choice in this kid."

Ichigo merely sighed in a resigned manner and muttered, "No. I don't suppose that I do."


	5. Chapter 5

Tony didn't know what to think about the situation that he'd just found himself in. To be perfectly honest, he wasn't pissed about the kid having abilities or anything, despite the angry way that he sounded when he had spoke to her. He was had heard enough to at least understand enough about the kid to know that she wasn't evil.

If anything she was somewhat similar to both Bucky and Bruce.

She had abilities that she didn't ask for and certainly didn't want because of how weaponized they sounded. No- he could understand that easily enough.

It was the fact that she was _his_ kid- and she purposely tried to kill herself more than once in an effort to remove herself from any possible future where she could be captured by people like the ones that ran Hydra- and be subjected to experimentation, inhumane treatment, study, brainwashing and who knew what other forms of abuse.

He was also just a tad bit _irked_ that she had never tried to reach out to him before now. But given certain circumstnces, maybe she hadn't thought that he or the others were trustworthy enough to even try. Which he couldn't totally blame her for given his record, but still...she could have at least tried right?

It wasn't as if they would have spurned her or turned her away without just cause.

"Alright, lets get this little pow-wow underway. First off, I'm Tony Stark. I came to Japan-"

"To find me," Ichigo finished for him in a tired tone. "I know. My- er, sorry, Issun clued me in around the time that he sent you the letter."

"You don't seem shocked or surprised to find out that I'm you're biological father."

"I'm not." She admitted before then saying, "As good a dad as Issun was and still is, I don't have any physical or personality traits pertaining to him."

"I see. So you technically already knew that he wasn't actually you're father then." She gave a small shrug. "Okay, I'll ask you more about that later. Tell us about you're abilities. How did you get them?"

"Was born with them."

"I already know that you didn't get them from me- so I'm guessing that you're mom was a little bit something more than normal." It wasn't really a question. Merely a statement of fact.

"It don't work like that," Ichigo growled at him, not wanting him to be mad at her late mother for something that she couldn't help. "I got my abilities from both parents."

"But I have no abilities. Superhuman, mutant or otherwise." Tony said again.

"Just because you don't have anything that's noticeable to you- doesn't mean that someone in you're family didn't. Some abilities are known to skip a few generations. So it's very much possible that someone in you're family was either a superhuman or a mutant." Ichigo pointed out.

Tony opened his mouth to tell her that she was wrong, but one warning glance from Bruce had him quickly shutting his mouth since there was _no_ flaw in her reasoning.

"Okay. So...how did you find out about them?"

"Me, Issun and my sister's were attacked when I was fourteen."

"Attacked? By who?"

She shook her head and then said, "Not a who. A _what_."

"Okay... _What_ attacked you?" Tony asked again. His expression expectant.

"A monster."

"A monster."

"A monster." Ichigo confirmed before going on to say, "I guess that the nearest thing that anyone could liken them too is a cross between aliens and mutants. They have human DNA in them, but- they themselves _aren't_ human. And they hunt people with very specific abilities."

"Hunt them for what?" Steve asked curiously. His mind latching onto her words and decided on it's own to not let go.

"Food. They catch people like me and eat us alive."

Tony made a weird strained squeaking sound while everyone else just looked at her in utter horror and disgust. They had known once she had said that she was attacked by a monster that they weren't going to like what she said next. But they hadn't been expecting her to say that the monsters _ate_ people alive for food. So they were understandably distressed to learn this.

Tony probably more so than the rest of them since she was his daughter.

"Please tell me that you managed to get away without injury." Tony squeaked after a moment or so. His voice was so strained that it was barely audible.

"Nope-"

"_Oh shit_. Can somebody grab me a garbage can? I think I'm going to throw up." Tony muttered looking more than a little bit...green and shaken. Ichigo grabbed the nearest waste basket and handed it to him and waited patiently for him to urge her to continue.

He actually did throw up a couple of times. But only a few, after which he set the waste basket aside and then motioned with his hand for her to continue.

"Are you sure that you want to actually hear this?" Ichigo asked as she stared down at the waste basket for a moment with her nose scrunched up. The smell of his vomit was churning her own stomach.

"You're my kid, and though I may not like what I'm hearing- and it probably will make me sick- as you're biological dad, I have a right to know if my baby girl is in danger..." Tony growled.

"That's fair," Ichigo said with a shrug before then continuing her previous story. "So, I was a little bit tied up during the attack. Another person with abilities similar to my own was tracking the stupid thing, and followed it's trail straight to my home. But couldn't sense it from there-"

"Wait, another person was involved? Another with abilities?"

"Who's telling this story? Me or you?" Ichigo said in an irked tone as she semi glared at Clint for interrupting her. The man put his hands up in the universal sign of surrender and then made a hand motion akin to her dad's. "So anyways... I was a little bit tied up once the two of us started interacting. Apparently I pissed her off when I kicked her in the butt and knocked her down for simply appearing in my bedroom at nearly ten thirty at night when I was supposed to be sleeping."

"But I couldn't sleep because I kept feeling...something weird. And after a little while that weird feeling morphed into being able to hear it roaring closer and closer to my home. So she used one of her abilities to bind me. I was literally unable to move- it was like I was crippled from the neck down. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't move, couldn't stand- I kept checking to even see if my arms and legs were still attached because it was freaking me out."

"Anyways, she was in the middle of telling me that I was defective in some way when I head one of my sister's scream from outside the house. Karin had been taking out the garbage when the damned thing showed up, and grabbed her. Her screaming got my other sister's attention and she ran out to see what was wrong and got hit by the thing and thrown into a wall."

"She somehow managed to get up and make it upstairs to my room before collapsing in front of the door crying and begging me to help Karin."

"But you were paralyzed."

"Yeah. But the binding isn't meant to be negated. But when I saw Yuzu crying for me to save Karin- I somehow managed to tap into my own abilities and nullify the binding. After that I was out the door, down the stairs and grabbed a chair and ran outside and broke it over the things arm. It hit me, in much the same way that it hit Yuzu and sent me through the kitchen door. It didn't even phase me. I was too scared for Karin to bother letting any pain stop me from helping her. And it was about to take a bite out of her- So I got back up and tried to get it's attention. It worked, but only just so."

"The second it's attention was on me and I realized what it wanted and I offered to let it eat me if it let my sister go-" Tony leaned over and puked again causing her to jump slightly in her seat. The abruptness of his action causing her to get a little bit _twitchy_.

Finally a few minutes later, Tony was sitting upright again and was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when she said, "I have ginger ale if you want some. I-It might help to settle you're stomach some."

"I'll take some in a little bit, once you finish telling us what happened." Tony rasped as he looked her dead in the eye and then muttered, _"Keep going."_

"Okay, so I offered myself to it thinking that maybe it would save Karin and buy her and the rest of my family time to get away-"

"I'm guessing that that didn't work out so well." Nat said.

"Not really, no." Ichigo said. "The uh...girl that had been hunting it- she showed up after it dropped Karin and started to reach for me. She got hurt pretty bad. But she managed to drive it back enough to buy us all a few minutes. But because of how injured she was, she knew that she couldn't stop it again once it attacked again. It would have eaten her and then me and then both of my sisters."

"So in one last act of desperation, he held her weapon out to me and asked me if I really wanted to save my family. I took hold of the weapon and put it against my chest and she told me what to do. I would have to borrow some of her power to force my own to evolve and jump start some new facets of my own natural abilities. All I had to do- was drive her weapon through my _heart _and let her force her power into me."

"Please tell me that you didn't trust her enough to actually do something so stupid." Tony said in a panicky tone.

"Did I mention that we were pretty desperate. So I did what she told me. It hurt- but once everything was said and done barely a second or so later, I found myself standing there with a huge ass flipping sword about as tall as I am and nearly twice as wide. And I was able to use it to kill the monster."

Tony nodded his head mutely, and stared at her wide eyed and uncertain of what to do next when someone said, "The little old lady that was here a while ago- she mentioned something about you fighting some people trying to cause a nuclear disaster."

Ichigo's lips twitched a little bit as she checked the time before saying, "That's...a painfully long story and if I bothered to tell you all about it right now- you'd have to spend the night."

Steve, Bucky, Nat and Clint all exchanged a look before Bruce said, "We're down for a slumber party. If you think you can accommodate us."

"I'm fine with it, but I'd rather be at my home for this. It has more space and such."

"That's fair."

"Alright, let me grab a few things and we'll head over there then."


	6. Chapter 6

Ichigo's actual home was a drastically huge improvement over the shack that they had left a little while before. It was a nice, non traditional, wooden cottage that was the size of a small apartment building and probably had close to as much rooms.

It was nice, homey and cozy looking and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief upon seeing it. Until a tall dark haired guy bigger than Steve and Bucky combined moved out of- the darkness? Shadows? To be perfectly honest none of them really knew where the guy came from. It was as if he simply materialized out of thin air.

He hadn't been there a second before and now he was.

And his dark eyes were fixated on Ichigo.

The bastard moved with barely leashed violence too. The only person that Tony had ever seen move like that had been Barnes back when he'd still been brainwashed by Hydra and was more soldier than Bucky.

And naturally seeing the way that the man was fixated on his baby girl, filled him with all kinds of fear and dread as she broke away from the rest of the group and made a beeline for him.

"Oh shit-" Was all anybody managed to mutter as the man stepped up to Ichigo and the two just looked at one another for a moment before he reached out and took hold of a lock of her hair and studied it for a moment before rumbling,

"What did you do to you're hair?" His voice was gentle, despite the quiet rumbling/growling quality of it that made it as threatening as distant thunder before a really bad storm. It pricked at Tony's mind, causing his hackles to rise in awareness of the threat that the man posed.

But Ichigo was totally comfortable with him. And with him _touching_ her.

Which was unfathomable to him.

Looking around at the others to see if they had noticed what he had, he saw that all of them were tensed up. Bruce's eyes were looking a little bit...green. Nat was standing unusually close to Clint and Steve and Barnes were both glaring daggers at the stranger as if they were trying to will his head to explode.

So he supposed that they caught onto it too.

Ichigo must have finally responded to the giant's question, because the man frowned down at her as he let the silken strands slip from his fingertips and then reached out to very lightly take her chin in his massive hand.

Steve, and Bucky both made growling warning sounds.

Their old fashioned protective instincts already clamoring to the surface and were all but _screaming_ at them to grab his daughter and remove her from the man's reach before he could snap her neck or something.

However instead of hurting her as they expected him too, he simply tipped her head back and looked at her for a moment before then asking, "Are those your new eyes?" Which caught them off guard a little bit.

"Yeah..."

"They're pretty," The giant rumbled. "But I liked you're other ones better."

Ichigo blushed a little bit at his words as he slowly let go of her chin and then looked over at them and narrowed his dark eyes at them before asking, "Friends?"

"My biological dad and his friends."

The giant nodded his head as if he accepted their presence and then simply rumbled out a soft, "Alright." Before moving away from her and then walking up to them.

Tony felt a sliver of fear shoot down his spine and tried not to tremble as the guy stopped a few feet from them all and looked them over for a moment. Sizing them all up before then bowing to them in a respectful manner and saying, "My name is Yasutora Sado. Ichigo is my best friend," Causing the lot of them to blink at him in bewilderment before he then said. "So if any of you hurt her for any reason... I'll hunt you all down and kill you."

"Chad! Don't go threatening my dad and his friends! I wanna make a good impression!" Ichigo chastised him as she walked up behind him. The man merely straightened his spine and looked down at her and huffed before rumbling,

"Ichigo, it isn't in you to _not_ make a good impression on anyone. You're too nice for your own good sometimes," He leaned down and brushed his lips across one of her cheeks in an affectionate manner and then straightened his spine again before tacking on with a slight shrug, "If you can't make a good impression on them by being yourself- then you don't need them in you're life. I'm not trying to be mean or even cruel- I'm just telling you the truth."

"I know." Ichigo said in a dejected manner that set Tony's teeth on edge.

He never wanted his kid to look so dispirited. _Never. _

"I'm going to be hanging around for a few weeks since I'm off work for a few months. Since I'm here, how about I cook you and everybody else dinner? Do you want hamburgers, soup and grilled cheese, a hot pot, or fajita's?"

Ichigo perked back up instantly and started jumping around in place, "Fajita's!"

The man's teeth flashed in amusement, pearly white against his tanned skin as he then asked, "Chicken or-"

"Both! I have the stuff for both."

He smiled again and nodded. "Alright. I'll get on that then." He said as he brushed by her and walked up to the house and then disappeared inside, making sure to leave the door open a bit for them before he meandered into the kitchen to see what she had in the fridge.

Once he was well out of earshot Tony turned to Ichigo and all but hissed out, "Are you _dating_ that guy?"

"What? No."

"But you've slept together." Nat said, noticing early on that the two were unusually close to be just friends.

"So what if we have." Ichigo replied in a suspicious manner as she studied them.

"Just... He doesn't seem like the type-"

"The type to what? Introduce to my family? To be a good friend and a stand up guy?" Ichigo supplied harshly, her expression dark.

"What no. That isn't what I mean at all- it's just-"

"That he _worries_ you."

"Well...yeah." Tony confessed awkwardly as Ichigo gave them a half smile before saying.

"_Good_. He should worry you. He's got a reputation around here similar to my own. The only difference is, he's very territorial and possessive when it comes to me. As far as he's concerned- I'm his, and he's mine. And we both protect what's ours with a single mindedness that would scare you shitless."

"So..you're threatening us now?" Steve asked in disbelief.

"No. I'm simply telling you the truth. Chad is a good friend. He always has been. But he's _dangerous_ for a reason. So...please try to be careful around him."

"He's unstable?" Bucky asked in a worried tone. Ichigo bit her lower lip and thought for a moment about what to say. But she didn't really need to, her hesitance was confirmation enough to them.

Although Ichigo must have thought that an explanation would be nice. "He and I are in similar situations."

"How so?"

"People want to get their hands on us. Because we're both highly weaponized. We've already been captured twice and placed in two different facilities to be tested and experimented on. They were stupid enough to fuck with his mind. He sustained most of the damage, though he is healing. It's just...he relies on me to help him stay..."

"Calm? Levelheaded? Sane?" Tony supplied helpfully, that feeling of dread from before was quickly changing into something akin to terror.

"Sure. Let's go with those," Ichigo said as she rubbed her nape with one of her hands. "Anyways, Chad has always been a protector. Even before he gained his abilities. So when they fucked with his head- they didn't really count on what they had done coming back to bite them in the ass."

"What did they do? To piss him off, I mean?"

"They did the worst thing imaginable. They made him watch while I was tied down and some guys tried to breed me like an animal. _It hurt._ I don't think I've ever felt that much pain before. And that's saying a lot considering how often, and how _badly_ I tend get injured."

"I don't recall much of what happened, I just remember being strapped down and the guys coming in. I vaguely recall stuff after that. But it pissed him off so badly that when I finally came to, he was carrying me outside, and we were both covered in blood. He refused to leave my side for any length of time for well over a year afterwards while we both tried to recover."

No one said anything nor asked anything after that. To be honest they didn't know what to say after hearing a story like that. Tony looked like he was just one small step away from having a nervous breakdown. Bucky and Steve looked all kinds of pissed. Bruce's eyes kept flashing green. And Clint and Nat reached out to each other and took each other's hands, lacing the fingers together tightly as Ichigo turned and started walking up to the house.


	7. Chapter 7

Once everyone was inside, Ichigo told them to make themselves comfortable in the dinning room while she grabbed them all something to drink and checked on her friend and then quickly excused herself from the room.

She was only gone a minute or so when they heard a very loud and distinct slam- almost like that of a body being slammed against a wall- followed by a loud, startled sounding yelp.

Then Ichigo could he heard growling loudly, _"Savage!"_ As a rumble of masculine laughter sounded from the other room. She returned a moment or so later with one of her hands full of canned drinks, her other hand suspiciously rubbing at the side of her neck with a scowl on her face.

"Are you okay?" Tony asked worriedly as she slowly dropped her hand away from her neck. Her expression softened a bit and she huffed as she started to set their drinks out in front of each of them.

"M'fine. Chad just needs to _watch_ where he's putting his fucking fangs, is all." She said as she handed him his drink, which he noted was alcoholic. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he was a former alcoholic, but after checking the alcohol content of the drink, which was far lower than anything that he was used to, and decided to let this one slide as long as she put a limit on how much he could have.

"He has fangs? No wait, sorry, we'll get back to that in a second," Tony said with a shake of his head before then tacking on, "I'm a recovering alcoholic-"

"I know."

"Huh?" Tony said unintelligibly as he stared at her uncomprehendingly.

"I can smell the lingering alcohol in you're blood from where you're body stored some away. From the smell of you, you've been sober for...maybe a year. Possibly two. Good job on that, by the way. I'm proud of you."

Tony stammered for a moment before finally saying, "Thanks." In a weak tone and then deciding that he really, really needed a drink. Even if it wasn't something that he could get drunk off of.

"If you can smell that on Tony, what do you smell on us?" Bruce asked curiously wanting to explore a little bit in depth how sharp her senses actually were.

Ichigo hummed and tilted her head to the side a little bit and then asked hesitantly, "You sure that you want to know?"

"Yes. I'm curious to know how sharp you're senses are." Bruce said a little bit eagerly. She scanned the rest of their faces doubtfully. She was about to tell the guy in the glasses no when she felt the air behind her stir a little bit and Chad's large hand settled gently on the back of her neck, his thumb lightly brushing back and forth along her skin in a comforting or soothing manner as he gently said,

"Tell them."

Ichigo made a low whining sound or protest but stopped when he tightened his grip a little bit and gently shook her until she batted his hand off of her and growled, "Knock it off. I'll tell them when I'm damned good and ready."

The giant merely made a humming sound and then put his hand on her nape again and tried to coax her into relaxing a little bit since it would make things easier on her. Finally after a moment or so, she sighed and then pointed to Bruce and said, "You smell like something toxic and poisonous," The man's curious expression remained, but he shrank down in his seat a little bit as if he were ashamed of her answer before she then said.

"Don't do that. You asked, I'm simply telling you what you wanted to know. However the toxic smell isn't all that I smell on you. I also smell a good bit of Chai Spice an chamomile. So I'm guessing that you drink a lot of tea. And then there's the rest of you're scent. Sandalwood, maybe a hint of vanilla too. But the Sandalwood is more pronounced. The toxic smell aside, it's really nice and pleasant when coupled with the other stuff."

Bruce blinked at her as if he hadn't been expecting her to say that and gave her a small smile as she moved on to Clint.

"You smell like the woods. There's a nice combination of oak, pine, fir, some moss and a couple of other things. But you also smell a little bit like milk, hot chocolate and marshmallows- so I'm pretty sure that you have kids. Three to be exact. All between the ages of eleven and two." Clint blinked at her and looked vaguely alarmed for a moment before she went on to say, "Try not to look so worried. I'm not going to tell anybody beyond whos here that you have kids. Besides, even if I were captured and tortured for the information, I wouldn't be able to give any specifics. No ages, no answer to how many of them, no location." That seemed to slightly mollify the man. Though he started to glare as she moved on to Nat.

"You smell a little bit like blood. It's not bad or even very noticeable. But I can tell the exact number of people who you've killed in the past few years or so. Each one has a very specific scent. Aside from that, you smell kind of sweet like watered down lavender and aged red wine. It's a little bit overwhelming up close. But nice just the same. It's something that anyone could get drunk off of." Nat smiled at her and blushed a little bit as she moved on to Tony.

"We've covered you being a recovering alcoholic. Aside from that I can smell something vaguely poisonous- like you were really sick for a while and are still trying to heal from it. And then there's iron, oil and wind on you. You also smell like spices. Nothing terribly specific, but it is very nice." Tony blinked at her and then nodded his head mutely as he cataloged this new ability of his daughter's away for later and more careful examination.

She pointed to Steve and grinned, "Apple pie. So I'm guessing that you're a little bit of a momma's boy." Bucky snorted and had to bite the inside of his cheek just to keep from laughing at Steve as he sputtered out that he was not in fact a big ol momma's boy. Ichigo merely grinned wider and called him a liar before then turning to Bucky, whom abruptly shut up. His laughter dying in his throat as she focused on him.

"I can smell a lot of different stuff on you. Snow, ice, pine, smoke, blood- shame and guilt. It's easy to tell that you feel badly about a lot of things. I can also smell a little bit of dark spices. Not totally unlike...dad's? But at the same time it is. It's..._very_ enticing."

Bucky blinked at her, not really knowing what to_ say_ to that much less what to _think_ about it as he watched her huge friend slowly release her from his grasp and then silently slip back into the other room.

Ichigo awkwardly rubbed the back of her neck and refused to meet their eyes for a few seconds as she moved to the empty seat over on the other side of Natasha, she pulled it out and then sat down as Nat said, "You're very talented."

"Not really. My senses sort of...evolved over the last few years or so. To be perfectly honest, I rarely bother to say anything about what I can smell or see or hear. It...makes people _uncomfortable_ to know that I can sense things that I shouldn't about them. I only mentioned it before cause uh..dad? seemed sort of uncomfortable with the drink that I handed him and I wanted him to know that I understood the reason for his discomfort."

Tony regarded his daughter for several moments before rubbing one of his eyebrows with his fingers and then saying, "I appreciate it kid. But try to not tell people things like that next time. It can cause trouble."

"I'm aware of that." Ichigo said in a somewhat embittered tone as she popped the tab on her own drink and then took a long drink before setting her alcoholic beverage aside.

"Should you be drinking that?" Bruce wondered aloud.

"Doesn't matter if I drink it or not. I don't make a habit of drinking much to begin with so it isn't like I'll wind up drunk or anything. I can't really afford the loss of inhibitions." She muttered when suddenly a weird beeping sound sounded from somewhere on her person causing her to jump in her seat and fumble for a moment as she got to her feet and started to dig into one of her pockets.

Her huge friend returned to the room and stood in the doorway, watching her as she pulled something akin to a beeping skull shaped keychain out of her pocket and then swore in an angry tone and looked at the lot of them for a moment.

"Ichigo-" She looked away from them to lock eyes with her friend as he motioned with his head towards the nearest window and simply said, "Go. I'll take care of things here."

She tinned her lips in displeasure and then huffed. "Fine. I'll go. But I don't have to like it any."

"I know. Just remember to call for help if you get in over you're head."

She snorted and walked over to the window and then said, "When have I ever _not_ been in over my head." Chad merely flashed her a fanged smile as she took a deep breath and placed the keychain thingy against her chest and started to glow a white-blue color.

Her appearance changing right before their eyes.

Her hair style, her clothing, even her eyes- all shifted and changed to something else. But the most noticeable difference in her, was the huge ass frigging sword that materialized in her hand out of fucking thin air before she slipped out of the window and ran off.

Leaving everyone to simply stare at where she had been in dumbfounded disbelief for several seconds before someone found their tongue and managed to rasp out, "W-What the hell just happened?"


	8. Chapter 8

Chad was pulling his cell out to check the tracking device that was used to locate and count the number of enemies present when he heard the question and paused for a moment to look away from the cell to respond.

"Ichigo went to fight."

"Fight what exactly?" Someone else demanded as his eyes returned to the cell and he pressed a button or two to zero in on the location and number of the Hollows present and_ growled_ in anger when he noticed that the damned things were close- too fucking close, if truth were told- to the Kurosaki home. Meaning that Ichigo's dad and sisters may very well be in mortal danger.

Not only that, but there was more than two or three of them.

Ichigo was strong. Probably more so than anyone he'd ever met before. But even she could become overwhelmed by greater numbers. And recently some of the Hollows that had been showing up had the ability to _hide_ themselves and their power from them.

Which made them even more of a threat than usual.

Without someone nearby to watch her back, Ichigo could very well be _killed_ and devoured.

"Damn." He muttered as he slipped his phone back into his pocket and turned to leave as he mentally went over the list of people that he could call for help. Orihime was out because she was five months pregnant and couldn't fight, defend or run as well as she used too given the added weight from the baby.

Uryu worked at the local hospital as an intern and put in long hours to finish up his internship and usually tended to be dead on his feet.

Rukia was out too due to her own pregnancy. Though she could send Renji to help Ichigo if the situation really called for it.

He supposed that he could call Urahara. But the man tended to stick close to home after the last Hollow attack nearly killed one of the kids he took care of. Chad could understand his feelings. Truly he could. The man was really attached to his creations despite the fact that they were artificially created humans and he loved them like his own children. He, Ichigo and the others were really attached to them too.

If he was called for backup- he might show up, and then again, he might not. It all really depended on how much he felt he wasn't needed.

His anxiety rising to near suffocating/crippling levels, he could only think of one thing to do. He would have to leave to go and help her.

"Hey! Giant guy! What the hell is going on with my kid?!" The guy that was Ichigo's biological father demanded in a loud tone.

Chad wheeled around with a feral snarl, causing the man to simply glare at him while the others shifted in their seats uncomfortably.

"I don't have time to explain. So I'm going to give you assignments and then I have to leave," He pointed to Bucky and quickly said, "I need you to watch the food and make sure that it doesn't burn." He pointed to Tony next and growled out, "You wanna help you're daughter- there is an infirmary upstairs that is equipped for nearly any situation that you can imagine. There's medicines, IV's, Blood, plasma, and even organs in one of the freezers. I need you on standby just in case one of us gets injured _badly_."

Steve quietly got up from his seat and merely said, "I'll go with you."

"No. Ichigo and I are more likely to get hurt if any of you are present. So stay here and hold down the fort."

Steve opened his mouth to argue, but Clint beat him to it. "You do realize that we _can_ fight, right."

"Not these things you can't. You have to have very specific abilities to even see them. Much less fight them. Now stop wasting my time and stay put." He growled at them before a weird reddish light emitted from his body and one of his arms was encased in a weapon with a weird shield thingy attached to his upper arm and he quickly ran out of the door.

"I don't know about you guys, bit I'm curious." Tony said after a moment or so of silence.

"So are we. But you heard him- You have to have specific abilities to even be able to see them." Bruce said as Tony glared at him from over his shoulder.

As far at he was concerned, that was his _kid_ out there. She was in some kind of trouble and she very well may need his help. Bucky, Clint and Steve all stood up with grimly determined looks on their faces as Nat sighed.

"Go and help if you can. Bruce and I will stay here and take care of things."

"Thanks Nat." Tony said in a grateful tone before bolting out the door. Clint waved bye to the two while he and Steve and Bucky quickly followed.

"What do you wanna bet that they get themselves into trouble." Bruce muttered as he sat back in his seat.

"Of course they will. But Tony was going to go regardless of anything any of us said. The girl is his daughter after all."

* * *

The four men made it to the end of the block before they stopped to see if they could see any signs of Ichigo and her overgrown friend anywhere. "I don't see them." Clint huffed in irritation. Tony opened his mouth to say something sarcastic like 'No duh sherlock' but abruptly shut his mouth when there was a weirdly chilling, roaring sound further down the street followed by something that sounded suspiciously like a loud explosion.

"Who here thinks that they're that way?" Bucky asked. Everyone put their hands up and then dropped them as Steve took off in the direction that the sound came from.

Nobody had the time to say anything else. They simply followed the man.

* * *

Ichigo was huddled down beside a car with her zanbaktou propped up against her uninjured shoulder, trying to stanch the bleeding with a dirty piece of her sleeve that she had tied off around the wound. The flimsy piece of silk wouldn't do much to stop or slow the bleeding- but it was better than doing nothing.

Once that was done, she test her arm to see how restricted her movements would be and was glad to know that despite the pain of the injury- she could still move it well enough to defend herself. Which was good since she hated being a sitting duck.

She wasn't particularly fond of the idea of being killed or eaten either.

"Ichigo!" She heard Chad's voice call out and her head snapped up and she scanned the area, finding him located not too far away from her present location and bared her teeth at him _growled_.

"I thought that I told you to stay back at the house!"

"There's too many of them for you to handle alone. I had to come." He called back. She grumbled something rude under her breath but didn't bother to tell him that he was right. Despite the fact that she knew that his logic was sound.

She was powerful. More so than any soul reaper ever created/born, but she wasn't _infallible_ and even she knew that. It's just...she didn't like it when people got hurt. She especially didn't like feeling helpless.

Chad didn't bother to try saying anything else to her. The girl was so damned stubborn that she'd argue until they were both blue in the face. Instead he waited for an opening and then ran over to where she was and settled himself next to her beside the car.

His dark eyes looking her over really quick for any signs of anything crippling or truly incapacitating before he said, "You're bleeding," She gave him a vexed look and tried to resist snapping at him for pointing out the obvious as he then asked, "What happened?"

"One of them has a scorpion like body. It's stinger got me."

"Is it poisonous?" Chad asked, concern flashing in his eyes. She gave him a half shrug, not really knowing the answer to his question herself. She felt okay at the moment. But if there was poison in the Hollow's stinger, then she could be looking at anything from a sleeping drug, to numbing, to even something that would make her body lock up and start shutting down her organs.

It really was hard to say.

"How long ago did it sting you?"

"About five minutes or so."

"Then if it does have poison either it's very slow acting or you're body is fighting it off to the best of it's ability."

"It won't stop it for long though," She pointed out before then saying, "I'm not exactly well equipped to handle poison."

He nodded grimly in agreement, his knowledge and understanding of her abilities was probably just as great as her own. "So what do we do?"

"I'll use myself as bait-" He narrowed his eyes at her and looked as if he was going to argue when she cut him off with a look. "I'll distract it if you think that you can grab it's stinger and yank it out. We might need whatever is in the stupid thing for an antidote. After that, we kill the fucking things and it's pal and then we leave."

"You sure that you want to run the risk of being stung again? It could spread poison faster." Chad pointed out. She made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat, but didn't say anything more than,

"No arguing. Now help me up." As she held her good hand out to him. He nodded his head and grabbed her hand and stood up, pulling her up while he was at it and noted the wide eyed look of disbelief on her face as there was a loud sound of metal crashing behind them and turned his head just in time to see the van that was tumbling their way.

He grabbed her up in his arms, earning a startled shriek from her as he jumped up over the car that they'd been using for cover and moved the hell out of the way as the van slammed into it and _shoved_ it back several feet. And somehow managed to clip him in the hip with one of the corners of the hood, before he could totally get clear of it, causing a weirdly painful jolt to go through him.

It was nothing that he couldn't manage for the time being, but it sort of reminded him of the time that this heavy piece of steel from a construction site had come crashing down on his head. He'd had some bad bruising and scrapes from the incident, but had otherwise been unharmed.

This injury would require more care because of the significant weight difference. He'd probably just got himself a bone fracture and a really bad bruise. But for now he was more or less fine.

"Chad!"

"I'm fine. Worry about yourself." He growled at her as he set her down and then used one of his legs to _push_ the damned things away from them so that they weren't conveniently boxed in by them. It gave them both a little more wiggle room to work with.

"Alright, on my mark." Ichigo said as she took several steps away from him so that she was out in the middle of the street, just shy of the totaled vehicles and then let her power flare in a enticing manner, coaxing any Hollows nearby out of hiding.

There were two left out of the six that had been there to begin with. Both of them were being driven into a frenzy of hunger and want, which would make it even harder for them to think well enough to realize what was going on until it was too late.

They rushed at Ichigo, seemingly forgetting his presence there for the time being. She stood her ground and refused to move knowing that to do so at this point would be a perpetual death sentence as she waited patiently for the first one to reach her.

It wasn't the scorpion one. And it was far easily dealt with once it opened it's mouth to take a bite out of her. All it took was one carefully calculated upward slash- and it rained jet black blood.

The scorpion was next. It's large stinger aimed right for her chest while it thought that she was distracted. If not for the fact that she was who she was, Ichigo would have simply stood there and let the thing pierce her. But instead, she used her lightening fast reflexes to spin out of the stinger's way at the last moment and grab it and hold the flailing limb in place just long enough for Chad to run out and grab the stinger and viciously yank it free of the tip of the tail.

The Hollow roared in pain and reared back, managing to throw Ichigo through a nearby building window before focusing it's malicious intent on Chad for damaging it.

Chad merely gave the thing a fanged shit-eating grin and reared back his fist in preparation to strike the final blow.

* * *

Tony scanned the area around them carefully knowing that something wasn't quite right about the situation as Clint finally said, "I don't see anything. Do any of you?"

There was a chorus of quiet 'no's from the others. And that was part of the problem really.

They had reached the scene not long after the giant had joined Ichigo in hiding behind a car and had cautiously watched the two talk for a few moments before they had stood up and then- a van from almost a hundred feet away, had been grabbed by something unseen and _flung_ violently towards the two.

The giant had managed to grab Ichigo and get them both out of the way in time- but they'd all heard Ichigo's slightly panicked shout and knew that something must have injured her friend.

Of course they didn't know how bad said injury was. But it must not have been too terrible if one of them had been able to push both vehicles away from where they were and give themselves a little bit more room to move around.

Of course Ichigo stepping out into the middle of the street and began to emit the same light from before, had confused them a little bit especially since there was _nothing_ there. They had been about to step out into the street and run to see if the two kids were badly hurt but had frozen in place when a couple of large blackish blurs had rushed towards the girl.

It wasn't until she made an upward slashing motion with her sword that they had actually seen the stupid thing. And it was huge and grotesque and absolutely _horrifying_.

Not nearly as horrifying as Ichigo grabbing the second one by what looked oddly like a scorpion's tail and her friend running out of his hiding place to rip the stinger out before Ichigo was thrown through a building window- but still pretty horrifying nevertheless.

Chad reared back his fist and punched at...something? The monster?

It was hard to say. All they knew was that his fist seemed to _hit_ something and meet some resistance before there was a loud blood chilling screech from...something that had them all quickly clapping their hands over their ears in an effort to drown out the terrifying sound.

Even Clint who was more than partially deaf, clapped his hands over his ears in an effort to block out the sound.

And then as quickly as the sound occurred, it abruptly stopped and they slowly dropped their hands and looked around warily as Ichigo's friend turned to the building that the young woman had been thrown through and quickly jogged over anxiously calling her name.

"I-I think it's safe now." Steve said as he peeked around the corner to look around a little bit better.

"I think you're right." Bucky muttered. Tony didn't need anymore prompting, he bolted towards where his daughter had last been seen just as Chad reappeared with her in his arms.

He skidded to a stop as the man paused for a moment to give him an oddly pissed look before then shifting his attention back to Ichigo. The woman was a damned bloody mess.

Her hair, her face, her neck and the rest of her was littered with various cuts, bruises, pieces of glass and splintered wood... But she was alive. Probably going to be really sore later, possibly concussed and bruised- but she was alive just the same.

"I thought that I told you lot to stay at the house." Chad said as he carefully climbed through what was left of the shattered window as the others finally decided to run out and join their friend.

"That's my kid, you're holding bud- and I refuse to stay back and let her fight alone." Tony snapped at him in an angry tone.

"That's a nice sentiment and all. But you'll only get yourself killed thinking like that. You and your friends aren't equipped to fight Hollows."

"But the two of you are." Tony challenged.

"More so than you." Chad said as he took a moment to set Ichigo down on the sidewalk so that he could check her for more severe injuries. That scorpion Hollow had been rougher on his friend than she needed at the moment.

He started with her head, running his fingers carefully along her scalp to check for knots or bumps. When he found none, he moved on to check for broken bones in her arms, fingers, neck, and so on. Once he had found a broken bone- a rib from the feel of things- he gently probed the area to see how sensitive it was, and watched Ichigo's face for any signs of pain and discomfort.

He saw some traces of pain. Not much though. So it probably wasn't a terribly bad break. Otherwise she would have sat up by now and hit him for probing the area. There was no internal injuries or bleeding- though it wouldn't hurt to check more thoroughly once he had her back at the house. And the rest of her injuries were mostly scrapes, bruises and area's embedded with shards and slivers of glass and wood.

"Is she going to be okay?" Steve asked as he watched the man carefully search for any bad injuries.

"She's a bit banged up, concussed and bruised. I've found only one broken rib. No internal bleeding or ruptured organs- I'll check her a bit more thoroughly once we're back at the house." Chad said smoothly before then carefully scooping the woman up in his arms again and standing back up.

A groan of protest escaping him as his leg gave a twinge.

"You okay?" Bucky asked as he studied him curiously.

"M'fine. Car clipped me in the hip when the van slammed into it and pushed it into us."

"If you want, Stevie or I can carry her." Bucky said, trying to be helpful. Chad looked down at him for a moment and thinned his lips for a second before saying.

"Thanks. But I've got her."

"Okay. Let one of us know if you change your mind." Bucky said as he stuffed his hands in his pants pockets and walked a little bit ahead of the man as everyone else followed in silence.


	9. Chapter 9

**We're into the nineth chap of this story- **

**I'm liking semi-dark-ish Chad. And Ichigo is so laid back it's hysterical. **

**I totally feel for Tony. **

**I'm tempted to do a Clint/fem Ichigo story where he's her dad. I think the two of them would be thick as theives. ****I'm still not sure if I want any actual pairings for this one. And if I do a pairing I want somebody who will give her what she needs.**

**I can't wait until the Avenger's decide that they've had enough and try to move her to New York. **

**Enjoy everyone.**

* * *

Ichigo didn't wake up for nearly an hour in a half upon their return. Which Chad knew could be both good and bad. So once he was at the house, he made quick steps to place his friend in the infirmary, uncaring of who was trailing along behind him as he did so.

He had already wasted enough time on Ichigo's visitors and he needed to take care of his friend. Once he set Ichigo gown on the nearest bed in the sterilized room, he made quick work of hooking up an IV drip and a blood bag as a precaution against the possible 'poison' in her system since fresh blood would dilute it's effects somewhat.

Once he had the needle carefully taped into place in the inside of her elbow, he then stepped back and went and grabbed an extra bag of blood just in case and hung it on the IV stand for later use and then grabbed a few other items.

And went to work carefully and meticulously stitching her arm up and digging out the shards and pieces of glass as well as the few slivers of wood that he found embedded in her skin, and then treating the wounds. The worst of them required small stitches, and bandages. While he used up a crap ton of band aides for the others.

It only took him several minutes to finish up with those. Or at least the wounds that he could find.

But there was really no telling what he would find once he undressed Ichigo, although...hopefully he wouldn't be doing that just yet give the fact that her biological father and several of his friends were still present.

And the last thing that he and Ichigo both needed was for her irate dad and his friends to cause a ruckus when he did. Besides, he needed to check her rib and see if there was any internal damage before he so much as _tried_ to undress her.

He was nearly finished with checking her when he heard one of the people, the woman must have joined them this time, since it was her voice that cut through his thoughts. "You've done this before?"

"Too many times. Ichigo has a...knack for trouble and tends to get hurt more than any one person with a sliver of common sense should. I tend to get myself into trouble as well. Though not usually as bad as Ichigo does. And then there's Uryu, Rukia, Renji, Orihime and the rest of our rag-tag group. A friend suggested that we all have special medical training, and a few other things just in case something happened."

"There are others?" Someone else- shit he couldn't keep up with them all. Why were there so fucking many of them? He wondered as he went about his business before replying,

"Yeah. Several thousand of us- I mean, we don't know everyone. We aren't that social as far as people go. And our immediate group has nearly forty or so people in it." He frowned at the screen on the machine for a moment as he checked her rib. He'd already checked for internal bleeding and such and found nothing noticeable.

And from the looks of things, her rib was already knitting itself back together. Which was good. It only meant that she'd be down completely for a few hours, maybe a day in a half and nothing more.

"I thought you said that her rib was broken earlier." One of the males said as he somehow managed to sidle himself up behind Chad and looked at the screen with a frown.

It took everything that Chad had in him in that moment not to turn around and rip the guy's head off for _daring_ to come up behind him and get close to Ichigo when she was unconscious. Instead he merely grit his teeth so hard that his fangs ached and growled warningly for the man to back the hell off.

The guy must have taken the hint once he heard the feral sounding growl that escaped his throat because he quickly removed himself from Chad's immediate vicinity and moved back to stand with his friends.

"Ichigo's dad-" Chad called out as he turned his back to them completely and turned off the machine and then pushed it out of the way as the man yelped across the room.

"Uh yeah..."

"Come over here and hold her hand while I go and take care of something in the other room." Chad instructed knowing that he needed to do several different things. One of which was checking the scorpion stinger for poison. Which would be a simple task for him thanks to what he'd learned from Urahara during several months of training.

And if there was, he would fix an antidote for it since he knew that Ichigo kept all kinds of supplies on hand for things like this.

He also needed to fix her bed, run her a bath so that he could clean her up, and find something comfortable for her to sleep in once he took her from the infirmary.

Moving back out of the way, Chad slowly got to his feet as Ichigo's dad walked over and hesitated for a moment to stare up at him. Chad stared back because he was in a pissy mood and was feeling rude at the moment.

Truth be told, he was still pissed at the man and his friends for leaving the house after being told not too. He understood their need to protect someone that they felt was weaker than they were, but they hadn't thought things through carefully enough.

And he _knew_ from personal experience that there were Hollows that could have easily taken them hostage and then used them against him and Ichigo both. And that pissed him off _immensely_. Not enough to cause any of them any immediate bodily harm, but then again what Ichigo didn't know and wasn't aware of- really wouldn't hurt him.

But first he had to take care of Ichigo and make sure that she would heal okay. And_ then_ he'd tear the lot of them a new asshole.

Once Tony was in place next to Ichigo, Chad dug the stinger out of the waist of his pants and took a moment to study it. There was black blood and something purple covering the very tip of it. Which might explain some why the back of his pants felt a little bit damp.

Turning it over in his hands, he narrowed his eyes at it and scowled as he mentally cursed. It looked as if it did have poison after all.

"I-Is that a claw?" One of the other men asked hesitantly. Chad thought about ignoring him and his friends for a moment and simply walking off to make the antidote, but if he didn't tell them anything about Ichigo having been poisoned, then if she started to display any symptoms- they might not know what to look for.

"It's a scorpion stinger. Ichigo was stung by it before I showed up to help her. And from the looks of it- it has poison in it. I need to go across the hall and make an antidote. Keep an eye on Ichigo for me, and come and get me if she starts showing any signs of pain, nausea, vomiting, of difficulty breathing. I'll be back once I've determined how to counter the poison." Chad said as he looked over at the brunette sitting next to his best friend.

What little bit of color that had been in the man's face, quickly drained away and he looked at Ichigo with wide fearful eyes and he nodded his head in understanding as Chad turned and left the room.


	10. Chapter 10

When Ichigo finally woke up, it was with a loud terrified scream that turned into a weird pained sounding yelp as she bolted upright in her bed before a pair of strong hands carefully pressed her back down onto her back while someone spoke gibberish to her in low soothing tones.

Or at least it sounded like gibberish to her- everything was garbled and distorted and she felt that if she tried to focus on anything, her head just might actually explode.

_What the fuck was wrong with her head?!_ She wondered as she tried to figure out what happened to her. She could feel someone stroking her hair back from her sweat covered face as her eyes darted around in a panicked manner before she finally managed to focus on something.

Like who the hands belonged too. She knew that they were male by the size and calluses on their hands. The rough part of their palms was beginning to feel like sandpaper against her skin and it was on the tip of her tongue to tell them to _get_ _some damned lotion_ when she heard Chad's familiar voice from somewhere on the other side of her and glanced in his direction.

"Ichigo? Hey, do you know where you are?"

_"No."_ She squeaked in a trembling tone that bordered on hysterical before finally gritting out from between clenched teeth, "And who the fuck keeps touching me?"

"Your dad."

"Issun?"

"No, the other one." Chad replied with a small frown wondering if maybe she had hurt her head when the Hollow before had thrown her through that building window after all.

"I have another dad!" Ichigo asked incredulously before then asking, "Did Issun finally decide that he batted for the other team? And don't lie to me Chad- I have a right to know."

There was the sound of several amused snickers as someone to her other side muttered, "I'm much to pretty to be tied down to a guy."

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell whoever that he could be the most gorgeous man in the world, but it wouldn't stop Issun from pursuing him any. The man was just weird like that.

Chad must have known that she was about to say something to the guy, because she felt his hand gently cover her mouth before he said, "I think that the scorpion's poison coupled with the pain meds that I gave you earlier have made you a little bit loopy."

She blinked up at him as he then asked, "Think you're feeling up to trying to eat something? It might help you feel better." And then slowly removed his hand from her mouth so that she could tell him yes or no.

"Is it okay if I just sleep it off?"

He thought for a moment before then nodding his head and then moved around to the other side of the bed and started to remove the IV from her arm. After that was done he reached out and carefully scooped her up in his arms and then moved to carry her out of the infirmary when she started chattering non stop.

"Where are we going?"

"I'm taking you to your room to get you cleaned up and then I'm putting you to bed."

"What about dad?"

"He and his friends are welcome to check on you later if they want. I won't stop them."

"Oh, okay. Then what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to stay with you." Chad said as Ichigo gave him a dopy grin before muttering,

"Kinky."

"Not like that, you little fruit loop." He chastised as Ichigo whined pitifully.

"But why not?"

"Because you aren't in you're right mind and it would be wrong."

"Can I at least have cuddles?"

The man sighed before quietly saying, "After you take a shower." Ichigo clapped her hands like a little kid and threw her arms around his neck and yelled,

_"Yay!" _

Tony and the others peeked out of the infirmary door to stare in disbelief at the two as the giant wandered off around a corner and disappeared before someone even bothered to mutter, "I think she's a little bit more than loopy."

Bucky and Steve both hummed in agreement and slowly nodded their heads and were about to turn away from the door when all of a sudden everyone heard a feral sounding growl from somewhere down the hall followed by a loud shout.

_"ICHIGO! GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF MY DICK!" _

"Uh... S-Should someone go and maybe separate the two of them?" Bruce wondered aloud. No one bothered to say anything or comment since they didn't want to have Tony bash their skulls in with a bedpan or something. "Okay then." Bruce muttered looking vaguely uncomfortable as Chad suddenly walked back into the room looking pissed, and paused when he saw that they were all still sort of standing around like before.

"What the hell are the lot of you still doing in here?" He growled, his tone and the way he carried himself both bespoke of irritation as he walked over to the medicine cabinet that he'd taken pain medicine from earlier and grabbed the bottle and looked at it for a moment. Before then moving over to a old piece of paper hanging on the far wall and studied it for a moment before letting out a few choice oaths and then put the bottle back into the cabinet and leaned his back against it and scrubbed his face with him hands.

"Is everything okay?" Steve asked him. Chad peeked out at the blond from between his fingers for a second before dropping his hands and saying,

"_No_. I gave her the wrong type of med." He sounded...weirdly upset and just a little bit resigned too.

"Isn't that bad?"

"Depends." Chad muttered with a slight frown.

"On what?" Tony asked in a worried tone.

"On her lack of inhibitions. Those meds effect her in a similar fashion to alcohol." Chad said as he pushed away from the cabinet and started back towards the door. "I need to go and make sure that she doesn't do anything she'll regret. You guys go back downstairs and...watch a movie or something and get settled. Once she's asleep I should be able to join you again if you have more questions."

* * *

A few hours later after everyone had eaten some of the food that Chad had made before he had run off to help Ichigo, everyone was sitting in the living room looking through some of the woman's things- movies, music, ect. When Steve came across a couple of dozen disks that weren't labeled.

"Hey Tony, I found some movies. But I don't know what's on them." He said as he handed them off to the shorter man who examined the disks curiously before then handing one to Clint and told him to put it in and they'd see what it was.

Clint did as he was told and then sat back while the disk started playing.

It was an old and semi-grainy video of a woman and a little kid with strawberry blond hair.

"Holy shit-" Tony muttered as he slowly sat himself down next to Bruce on the couch and just stared.

"What is it Tony?"

"I-It's Misaki, Ichigo's mother. I don't know who the kid is though." Tony said as he watched the video in awe.

Misaki was just as beautiful as she had been the day that Tony had met her. Her hair was longer, and she dressed more conservatively than he recalled, but she was still a looker even with the strange kid walking next to her.

_"I still don't understand why you don't knock that Tasuki girl down for once. Maybe if you did, she'd leave you alone and not bully you so much."_ The woman finally said as she looked down at the kid.

_"Tasuki isn't so bad, mom. She's actually really nice outside of karate class." _

Tony cocked his head to the side a little bit upon hearing the kid call Misaki 'mom' and wondered if maybe Ichigo had a older brother or something that he didn't know about.

The woman giggled. _"Is that so?" _

_"Yeah. Besides, I'm not suppose to hit girls. It can make them cry!" _The kid protested.

_"That only counts if you're a boy, Ichigo. Besides, if that girl maims you're face how will you one day get a husband?" _

Tony made a choking sound and paused the video for a moment to look at the image of the kid. Short, wild strawberry blond hair, wide grey colored eyes- the kid's features definitely looked like Ichigo's own.

"Holy shit, Tony! You're daughter looks like a little boy!" Clint laughed as Tony shot him a glare and curled his lips back from his teeth in a silent snarl before then unpausing the video so that they could continue watching it.

_"Ew. I don't need a husband, mom. Boy are gross. Besides- if I wind up maimed then maybe I could join a circus?" _

Misaki snorted and said dryly, _"Don't say that around your father. He'd love to be able to run around a circus, especially if he got in for free to see one of his kids." _

_"Aw. That's a good point... Okay so no circus. I still don't wanna husband though. Boys are annoying." _

_"I thought that they were gross."_

_"They are both." _

_"And what made you come to this conclusion?" _

_"A lot of boys around school have been flipping girls skirts and dresses up." _

_"What?!" _

_"It...disgusting. The last time I wore a skirt one of them got me- it was embarrassing. They teased me because I was wearing pink panties." _Ichigo said with a vivid blush. Misaki looked at the girl in a horrified manner before saying something about needing to have a very _long_ talk with the principle next Monday.

After that the two fell into a nice little routine, up until they started to pass a river.

It was raining in the video, and from the looks of it- it had been for a while. The river was flooded and as Misaki started to lead Ichigo past it, the kid paused and let go of her mother's hand and seemed to zone out for a moment. The next thing they knew the girl was sliding down the hill and dashing towards the river as fast as she could.

Misaki turned and started screaming for the girl and quickly followed shouting for the child to stop.

Everything after that happened in a blur. Ichigo went down just shy of reaching the river and lay there on the wet and muddy ground looking like a rag doll while her mother screamed something nearly inaudible before they heard her shouting, _"No! You can't have her! Stay away from my baby!" _

The video went shaky for a moment or so and then they saw a close up of the woman's _terrified_, and blood spattered face.

Tony put his hands over his mouth as he watched the mother of his daughter as she struggled, sobbing on the ground for a moment, crying as she tried to reach Ichigo's prone figure just a few feet away. The next thing that they saw was the woman's dark eyes widening as she was grabbed by something or someone and her piercing scream as she was dragged away for the child and disappeared into the river.

The film cut out for several seconds and then resumed.

It was sunny out this time, and Ichigo was standing on the bank of the very river where her mother had been lost just...walking back and forth along the bank, staring at the dark colored waters.

_"Ichigo!" _A little girl with dark colored hair came running up to the blond.

_"Tasuki." _Ichigo said as if she were greeting her, though her tone was anything but friendly.

_"I didn't see you at school again today, so I thought that I'd come and check on you. You're still looking for some trace of your mom aren't you?" _

_"Yeah." _

_"Didn't the police drag the river?" _

_"They did. But I keep getting this weird feeling that they missed something." _Ichigo explained in a tired tone. The poor kid looked exhausted. There were dark circles under her eyes, she was wearing dirty clothes. She looked...sick too. Almost as if she were running a fever or something.

_"What do you think they could have missed?" _

_"Not sure. That's why I need to look." _Ichigo said.

_"Ichigo... You look like you're sick. Why don't you call it a day and just go-" _

_"Would you be able to simply go home and pretend nothing had happened if you're mom died because of you?" _The words were said in a harsh tone that was full of anger and loathing. It made the other child flinch back a little bit and look down at her feet.

_"N-No. I don't suppose that I could..." _

_"Then you should understand why I need to do this." _

The other girl was reluctant, but nodded her head anyways before asking, _"Where were you when you got that feeling you were talking about?" _Ichigo pointed somewhere off screen.

_"Over there." _

_"Then that's where we'll look." _

_"Tasuki… You should go home and just-" _

_"No! I'm not going to just go home and leave you to do this alone. If it were me who had lost my mom- I know that you'd be out here night and day looking for her for me whether you had help or not. It's...not something that you should do alone. So I'm staying." _

Ichigo sighed and clenched her teeth and looked away from the girl before biting out, _"Fine. But if I tell you to do something you better fucking do it." _

_"Okay. And Ichigo-"_

_"What?" _

_"You shouldn't swear. It isn't lady-like." _

Ichigo cast a glare in the girl's direction and then suddenly asked, _"Can you swim?" _

_"Huh? Yeah-"_

_"Good- then I shouldn't feel bad about shoving you into the river the next time you say something dumb." _

_"What?! Why would you do that?" _

_"Don't tell me what I can and can't say. I'm pissed enough as it is." _

_"Ichigo! Don't curs- Eeek!" _Ichigo shoved the girl into the river and then stood there waiting for her to surface. And when she did, she came up sputtering and screaming all kinds of things at the blond. Ichigo just stood there, unconcerned as the girl awkwardly climbed out of the river and hugged herself in an effort to keep her teeth from chattering as the blond shrugged out of her small jacket and threw it at her.

It hit Tasuki it the side of the head and nearly made the poor girl fall into the river for a second time as Ichigo turned and slowly wandered off uncaring if the other girl joined her or not.

The two kids wandered back and forth along the river bank for what seemed like hours- Tasuki chattering about anything and everything off and on while Ichigo barely spoke or even gave the other girl any sort of attention until the dark haired girl finally got tired and started to leave when one of them spotted something in the water.

Whoever shot the video zoomed in on the two kid's find.

It was an arm.

Tasuki screamed in horror and started crying while Ichigo grabbed her and forced her back until she was a good thirty feet or so from where they found the limb before quickly returning and with a determined look dove into the water and swam over to it and grabbed it.

Tasuki screamed some more and tried to get Ichigo to leave it alone and then finally turned and ran away as Ichigo hauled herself out of the river and tugged the arm up out of the water and then carefully laid it out on the bank and checked the fingers.

It was a woman's arm. That much was plain to see from the remaining fingers attached to the hand. The nails were painted and one of them had a wedding band.

Ichigo thinned her lips at the sight of the ring and then tugged the ring off of the limbs ring finger and pocketed it and then simply sat down and pulled her knees up to her chest and seemed to wait for something.

The video finally ended when the police showed up and someone picked Ichigo up and carried her away.


	11. Chapter 11

"I see that you all found something to occupy your time." Chad's voice came from somewhere behind them, startling Tony, Bruce and Clint so badly that the three of them jumped.

"Hey Chad," Nat greeted. "Is Ichigo alright?"

"Yeah. The meds finally put her to sleep. She'll be out until sometime tomorrow morning," Chad said before then looking at the TV and saying, "I guess I should have warned you not to watch anything that isn't labeled. Especially something that Ichigo stole from Grand Fisher."

"Huh? Grand who?" Clint asked as he slowly sat himself back down.

"Grand Fisher- the bastard that murdered Ichigo's mom." Chad said as he walked around the couch and took the disk out of the DVD player and slowly put it back in it's casing and slid it back onto the shelf where it had been found.

"Wait, wait, wait- that video was _shot_ by an actual killer?" Steve asked in a aghast tone.

Chad hummed thoughtfully before replying, "Yup."

"How?"

"The fucker went after Yuzu and Karin and Ichigo when she was fourteen in a half. Ichigo tortured him for information when he let it slip that she looked just like her mom."

Everyone's jaw dropped open in shock and Tony let out a squeaking sound as he asked, "S-She tortured him?"

Chad hummed again, "Yeah."

"W-Why didn't she just hand him over to the cops?"

"Because he...was different."

"Different? _Different!_ What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" Tony screeched as Chad turned around to glare at him as Steve suddenly said,

"I think it means that the authorities wouldn't have been able to hold him. Right?"

"Yeah. The guy had a special talent that was bad business for anyone that got too close to him. Ichigo found that out first hand. And he hurt her pretty bad. I think that's part of the reason she went off on him so badly. That and her mom's death."

"So she tortured him until he confessed and then..."

"She went to his place and ransacked it and found the disks and stuff and stole them."

"I can't imagine that that went over well with anyone."

Chad shrugged, "The guy didn't have any family. No neighbors. No real friends. He was a drug addict and a bum. So I don't really think that anyone cared. Besides, Ichigo turned the evidence over to the cops and then finished taking care of the problem. He's still alive, but after what she did to him- he'll never touch another person for as long as he lives."

"What did she do to him?" Nat asked curiously. Chad flashed a fanged, grim smile at them and simply said.

"She made him into an organ donor- I've heard that he's saved at least a dozen people already."

Tony squeaked again, unsure of how to react to this new development as Nat and Clint and Bucky all nodded their heads in understanding before one of them said, "Well at least he's making up for his sins now. Even if it isn't willingly."

"I personally hope that the fucker is burning in the deepest darkest pit in hell." Chad said before scrubbing his face with his hands and then asking if they'd eaten anything. Everyone had. Though they'd left some of the food for him and Ichigo since they hadn't had any yet.

Upon hearing this, Chad gave them a grateful look and then wandered out of the living room to fix himself something to eat. And then once he was done, wandered back into the living room with his food and a drink or two in his other hand.

Once he was seated in the recliner off to the side of the couch and had his drinks set on the coffee table he sat back and said, "You all must be pretty curious about some things. So go ahead and ask you're questions and I'll do what I can to answer and explain things."

"Okay, I have a question-" Nat said before then asking, "How did you and Ichigo become friends? And what is your relationship with her?"

Chad snorted and then started laughing a bit. "That's a fair question, I guess. A little bit on the nosy side, but fair. I met Ichigo in middle school. Back then- she looked a whole lot different than she does now. She was still pretty, but anyone dumb enough to say anything about that fact wound up crying when she punched their teeth out."

"Anyways, back then- we didn't talk much. We didn't even run in the same circles. Ichigo was...different from everyone else. For instance, she was taller than most girls, a bit underdeveloped. She kept her hair short like a boy. She rarely spoke. Barely laughed. She literally had only one or two friends."

"So- I was walking home from school one day and decided to cut through an alley. which in hindsight wasn't the smartest thing in the world to do. Back then the town had at least seven well known and very infamous yakuza syndicates and they tended to run amok everywhere. I lived close to at least two of those groups- and had been jumped more times than I could count on both hands, and beaten up by some of their guys."

"Anyways, I was listening to some music, just minding my own business and the next thing I knew I started tripping over some people. They were all unconscious, bloody and bruised- some of them had some broken bones and such. I could hear cat calls and laughing even over my music and I dunno- it was upsetting. I could tell by the clothing and stuff that they were yakuza. But I didn't exactly understand why there were so damned many of them until I finally reached the middle of the alley."

"There were five guys out of the dozen or so that were lying around on the ground- they were holding someone down. I thought at first that they had some poor guy and were trying to make an example out of him. But they had a girl. Thin, delicately boned- she was on her knees on the ground on top of some broken glass and shit. Two guys were holding her arms back behind her back and the guy in front of her had a home made sledge hammer wrapped in barb wire held up over his head, about to bring it down on the girl's head."

"They were laughing and calling her names- They hit her to try and make her afraid of them. And when that didn't work, they hurt her other ways. By the time I was close enough to really see what was going on...one of them had pulled her pants down and was... She didn't take it well for obvious reasons. And she didn't feel terribly inclined to just sit there and take it. So the second that her hands were free- she dropped all of them. The guy hurting her, she kicked him in the balls so hard that something ruptured and he had to have surgery."

"She broke several bones on the other guys and then left them on the ground crying and moaning in pain before she even noticed me. I was...internally freaking out. I'd just witness some poor girl being raped and- I didn't know what to do. All I knew was that she wasn't looking so good and she needed help. I tried to get close to her to pick her up cause she was swaying and looked like she was about to pass out. She grabbed a broken beer bottle up off of the ground and threatened to cut me with it if I didn't turn my back to her and let her fix her clothing."

"And since I had seen first hand the damage that she could do- injured or not- I decided that it was probably in my best interest to listen to her. She fixed her clothing and I turned back around just in time to see her staggering off and decided to follow her. After that, I was watching her _constantly_."

"Every time we passed on the street after that, I'd drop what I was doing to follow her. At school, I made it a habit to start sitting beside her in class and at lunch and stuff. I didn't really know why or even understand why I was doing it. I guess it was because I knew that she was hurting despite how much she was trying to hide it. I wanted to know her. And be someone that she could talk to if she needed it."

"After about a month or so, things changed. They took a _really_ bad turn in such a huge way that I still cringe over it..." Chad said as he set his plate aside, suddenly not feeling very hungry anymore and laced his fingers together and then leaned back in his seat and started talking again. "She didn't know at the time, though the signs were there. She'd been getting sick, fainting- she was exhausted all the damned time. And despite all of that, people were still jumping her and forcing her to fight to protect herself. One of the bastards that got her before made sure to spread the word that she was a girl. And therefore easy prey to anyone wanting a new girl to train and sell into prostitution."

Tony looked at him wide eyed and reached out to the person next to him and seized their hand in his in a white knuckled grip.

"She had just finished making the latest batch of dickless wonders eat dirt, and had come out of the alley that they'd dragged her into and all of a sudden she just doubled over and started screaming. It...scared the fuck out of me. She collapsed and as I ran up to her I saw a big puddle of blood under her and freaked out. I didn't know where the blood was coming from all I knew was that it was a lot of blood and she needed help. I grabbed her and ran straight to her dad's clinic."

"He took her, and had me sit in the waiting room while her sisters were sent to spend the weekend with a friend. He worked on her for about an hour before finally coming out of the room. Ichigo had gone quiet a few minutes after I got her to her dad, and I was on edge because for all I knew she was dead. Issun came out into the waiting room- still covered in her blood and walked over to me and grabbed me by my shirt and yanked me out of my seat and demanded to know what the hell happened."

"So I told him. And I have never in all the years that I've known the man, seen him so angry and hurt and outraged like he was that day. So he let me go and told me to sit back down. He'd talk to me again later, and then he walked back into the room and stripped off his gloves and mask and washed himself as best as he could and then he grabbed Ichigo and moved her to her bedroom so that she'd be more comfortable and once he was done with that, he came back and sat down next to me and just talked. He told me what had happened to her. How far along she had been. How she would likely react to the loss. And once he finished, he asked me to please keep an eye on her. I gave him my word that I would and then I left."

"The next time that I saw Ichigo was almost a week later. She was more quiet than usual. Even more somber. And she had a deadened look in her eyes and that was frightening. Her dad had sat down with her once she woke up after she lost... And he talked to her. He put her on anti-depressants and tried to get her to go to therapy, but she refused. She started to get bullied. I don't really know _how_ nor _why_. All I know for sure was that rumors started flying about her assault and stuff."

"People started talking. Saying that she obviously _wanted_ it to happen and shit. People started calling her names, the usual things like slut, whore- Things finally spiraled out of control when some stupid boys thought that it would be funny to douse her in animal blood- after they had stupidly propositioned her to be their personal play thing and she refused to give in to them. She didn't take the blood thing very well."

"She tried to hang herself. I don't know the specifics, but one of her sisters found her hanging from the light fixture in her bedroom unconscious and not breathing. After that she was out of school for a month in a half or so. He dad decided to keep her home so that she could recover in peace while he fought with the parents of the bullies and the school staff and stuff for allowing things to get so bad."

"When she finally came back- things were a bit better. The bullies had been suspended. Issun threatened to take legal action against the school and the parents of the little bastards, so we got a few new teachers, a new principle, a few councilors. And the first thing that I noticed when she came back was that she was more like her old self. She was calm. Still too damned quiet for anyone with breath in them- and she grabbed me on my way to class and dragged me out of the school to skip classes for the day with her."

"She talked to me. Maybe for the first time since I found her in the alley. And that became a routine for up. Every few days or so- she'd grab me and drag me out to skip classes with her. I did however make her promise to stop for a little while if my grades started suffering. She said that that was fair. And offered to help me study if I needed extra help to catch up."

"I was still getting jumped from time to time by yakuza and thugs and stuff- and the first time that Ichigo was there with me- she beat the crap out of everyone that had come after me and sent them running. She didn't understand why I never raised my hand to defend myself. So I told her that I used to be a much _worse_ delinquent than her and got myself into some real trouble once. I'd been living in Mexico with my grandfather at the time. And he got badly injured trying to keep me from being killed."

"He made me promise to stop fighting and be a better person. And even gave me his gold medallion necklace before he succumbed to his injuries and died. And I was shipped back to Japan to be placed in a foster home afterwards. Ichigo understood a little bit better after that. Though not completely. But at the time, it was simply enough for me that she was trying."

"So- I got jumped one day after school, after Ichigo had left to go home. I didn't even see what happened, the cowards snuck up behind me and hit me hard enough to knock me out. When I woke up I was tied by some steel cables, to a chair by the river and the leader of the guys that had got me was holding up my grandfather's medallion like a trophy when Ichigo came out of nowhere and slammed her foot into the idiot's face and sent him rolling. Once he stopped- Ichigo grabbed my grandfather's medallion and held it up so that I could see that it was safe. And then dug the guy's cell out of his pocket and called for some ambulances."

"These guys were more difficult for her to knock down, but in the end she managed. And it was a good thing that she had called some ambulances- cause they really needed them by the time she was finished. Once she was done, she flopped down on the ground next to me and told me that she had felt that she should check on me- it was why she had come looking for me in the first place."

"And then she told me again that she still didn't really understand why I didn't defend myself. But since the promise that I made to my late grandfather meant so much to me- she held up my medallion again and smiled and said, _I'll make a deal with you. If there's ever something that you love so much that_ _you're willing to risk your life for it, then I'll risk mine too_. All I had to do was fight for her. I would get to keep my promise and my grandfather couldn't be mad at me for it. It was a damn good deal. So I agreed."

"That's how you became friends?" Nat asked looking more than a little bit mortified. Chad laughed.

"Yeah. People usually find ways to bond over certain things that they have in common. Ichigo and I got jumped a lot, hurt a lot, and fought a lot. So we wound up bonding over those things. She watched my back and made sure that I didn't need to defend myself unless it was absolutely necessary- and I watched her back and did the same. Outside of those things we shared some other common interests."

"We were both protectors. So we bonded over that too. I helped her out if she needed help to watch over her sister and other friends and she would come over to my place and some times spend days just making an utter nuisance of herself. We'd take turns cooking each other dinner and stuff for lunch to take to school. She knew that I liked music so she saved up her allowance and stuff for several months and bought me some music books and a few instruments. A couple of guitars, a keyboard some drums. And since I didn't know how to read the music books- she'd come over and we'd just jam sometimes."

"She taught me how to read the music in the books and even taught me how to play the instruments. We had the cops called on use several times for_ really_ getting into things. Ichigo really shocked the hell out of me when she sat down at the keyboard once and started to play classical Chopin on it. She never really played the classical stuff often when we were younger, but- she tends to play it a bit more now. I got her a piano for her seventeenth birthday."

"You're in love with her!" Bucky said as he pointed at him and practically jumped around in his seat until Steve elbowed him in the side.

Chad merely gave them a fanged smile but didn't respond to the man's gleeful accusation one way or the other. It wasn't any of their business if he was in love with Ichigo or not.

"You are aren't you?" Bruce asked, his tone gentle and coaxing.

"I am." He finally said as he unlaced his fingers and settled his hands on his thighs.

"So? Does she know?"

"She does. It would be impossible for her not to, all things considered."

"Huh?"

Chad grinned at them and simply said, "I care for her. So when we were seventeen- I put a ring on her finger."

"You're engaged?!" Steve and Tony gasped out in unison.

Chad laughed at them before then saying, "No. _We're married_. It was sort of a happy accident/mistake after a night of drinking together. But Ichigo didn't really mind all that much, being bound to me. And I didn't really mind much either. So we sat down together and talked a long time about our mutual wants, needs, goals for the future."

"We both wanted to finish school. Get jobs to support ourselves. Ichigo already had one full time job. She just _rarely_ got paid for her work. So when she did finally figure something out for herself- the first two hundred thousand dollars she had- she put some of it in her account, gave some to Issun to get more equipment for the clinic and to hire and train a couple of people to act as doctors and nurses."

"She's always been good with her hands, so she found something that she could do that she could make money off of and make up her own hours and such. You wouldn't believe how excited she was to sell her first two designs. She was so happy that she couldn't stop grinning for weeks."

"She designs things?" Tony asked, perking up a little bit in interest.

"Houses. Tree houses for kids. Sometimes fashion accessories and jewelry. She tends to dabble in a little bit of everything. But her designs have gotten her a ton of money. Enough to support her and I both for several lifetimes if that's what we wanted. She designed this house from top to bottom. Bought the land and supervised it's construction."

"I got myself a record deal from recording company for my music, right out of high school, and just finished up my _third_ cross country tour. Between the both of us, we have enough to take care of ourselves, Ichigo's sisters, Issun's funeral expenses and such when he finally dies, as well as do whatever we want for the rest of our lives."

"I've been trying to get Ichigo to _retire_ from fighting Hollows and such for a while now. But she's stubborn and refuses to because then it wouldn't be as safe as it is. And I understand her other reasons well enough. Her sisters and a majority of innocent people in town all have abilities of one kind or another. Latent or not, and Ichigo provides a certain service for them that helps to keep them and everyone else safe."

"And that's how you met and what you're relationship is?"

"Yup."

"You could have just told us that directly you know?"

"The night is going to be long and I _need_ to entertain you since Ichigo can't." Chad said with an amused smile. "So, anymore questions?"

"Yes," Bruce said before then continuing, "You have special abilities too? Like the arm thing? How did you get you're abilities?"

"That's...something that actually has two half answers. One part is that I was born with some of them. And the other is prolonged exposure to Ichigo's own abilities caused mine to evolve past what I had originally been born with."

"Wait- Ichigo's own abilities helped yours to evolve? How?"

"The girl has so much damned power that it tends to overspill and spread out in the environment around her. When that happens, anyone with unknown and un-awakened abilities of their own- tends to have their abilities develop much faster than normal. Mostly their abilities would awaken, and evolve in an effort to protect that person from the possible_ threat_ walking among them. And that's basically what happened to me. I was always closer to Ichigo than most- so my abilities began evolving before I even knew that I had them."

"From prolonged exposure to Ichigo's own?"

"Yes."

"How does that even work?"

Chad took a moment or so to carefully consider his next words before then saying, "A friend who formerly used to work for the government explained this once. He said that to people like me- Ichigo's abilities bled out into the environment and sort of affected us almost like a virus. We absorbed part of her own power and strength and _changed_ because of it."

"Is there no way for you to go back to...uh..._normal_?" Bucky asked as Bruce and Tony both looked at him eagerly and nodded their heads.

"_No_," Chad said and raised a brow as all three men noticeably slumped down in their seats before going on. "And after the things that I've seen, and done, and had done to me- even if I could go back- I wouldn't. If I did, I'd die. There would be no time at all to adapt to being normal again because I would literally drop dead within moments. Any old injuries I got previously- they'd reappear and reopen. I lost an arm in one fight. Had my lungs damaged, my stomach ripped open- I had a fucking hole nearly the size of my own hand nearly tear me in half. I'm only alive now, because of my new abilities and what energy I've managed to syphon off of Ichigo."

"The same would happen to Ichigo if she lost her abilities too. I mean, she's had her power go dormant a few times after particularly bad fights. But she wound up in a coma both of those times. And her abilities always came back after a period of rest. But if she had really lost them- she'd be dead now."

"Everything that she regenerated would disappear or reopen. And I don't know if you even realize this but that woman is like some sort of monster. Figuratively speaking, of course. She's had her heart ripped out of her chest, her lungs torn to ribbons, her internal organs pummeled into mush, slowly turned to stone and even liquified, her limbs have been ripped off, her head nearly severed from her shoulders, a _hole_ was even put through part of her skull by another superhuman's fingers in an attempt to lobotomize her-"

"I-It was just _horrific _and_ bad_. Beyond anything that you can possibly imagine and then some. Ichigo came so close to being lost repeatedly over the years that if she ever did go back to normal- there wouldn't be anything left of her to even bury. And then there's the Hollows. Former human's that are so evil and malicious that they turn into actual honest to god _monsters-"_

"Wait, wait - Sorry, hold up. Those things used to be humans? As in _actual_ human beings?" Clint asked looking more than a little bit alarmed at the possibility of someone, maybe even someone close to him, turning into a monster of any kind.

"I'm afraid so."

"Can _they_ go back to normal?"

"No," Chad said as he watched them all shift around almost anxiously before he went on to say, "Most Hollows are created by the darkness in a person's soul. The darker the soul is- the more the evil taints them and changes them into something else. Hollows are essentially created when a evil person dies as a human, and their corrupted soul becomes a monster to reflect that evil. Once the soul changes into a Hollow- the first and only thing on their minds is to discard their former humanity, if they even had any left, and to hunt their prey."

"T-They eat people, right? I think Ichigo mentioned that." Steve stammered out.

"They do. And when they do it leaves a gaping hole in people's lives that nothing in the world can fix."

"You speak as if you know someone personally who has died in such a way." Nat said gently. Chad gave her a grim look before saying,

"Ichigo and I used to go to school with a few kids that later on began to develop abilities too. Four of them were lost to Hollows. Ichigo was with them when it happened but at the time her power was dormant and she couldn't use it. All she could do was try to reach them and get them away from the Hollows. But she got hurt doing it and by the time anyone had found her she was already in the hospital, hysterical, mad with grief- everyone thought that she'd try to kill herself again so she was left alone for the most part."

"She blamed herself, didn't she?" Bucky asked, looking saddened by the thought of Ichigo hurting in such a way.

"She did. Because she knew that if her abilities hadn't been dormant at the time- they probably would have lived. And that is maybe an even heavier burden than everything else."

"T-That must have been hard on her." Tony stuttered as his heart squeezed painfully in his chest at the thought of his kid having to go through so much pain and suffering.

"It was. She never did like losing people. And in recent years we've buried more than our fair share of friends and comrades alike." Chad said softly. tony merely nodded curtly in understanding and said nothing when they all heard the faint sounds of footsteps coming towards the living room.

Chad looked towards the doorway and smiled as Ichigo wandered around the corner in one of his overly large button down shirts. Her long dark hair, tousled and she had a small frown on her face as she walked into the room and paused just behind the couch to scan everyone.

"You okay Ichigo?" Chad asked, his tone low and soothing.

She made a funny sound in the back of her throat and then wandered around the couch and walked over to him and paused within reaching distance and simply said, "I had a funny dream."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. We had a kid."

Chad grinned at her as he reached out and gently collected Ichigo in his arms and pulled her into his lap and let her curl up there and lay her head on his shoulder as he asked, "Was it a boy or a girl?"

"Dunno. In all honesty he/she was kind of a smartass. So I grounded him/her. The dream ended around the time he/she decided to mutiny." Ichigo replied in a matter of fact tone with a small scrunch of her nose as Chad chuckled at her reply. If they had really had a kid and it was a smartass, then it had to be a girl just like Ichigo. There was simply no two ways about it. Any son of his would be respectful and kind.

He'd leave the trouble and mischief up to their daughter.

"Think it's a sign?" He asked as Ichigo bit back a yawn and turned her head so that her face was partially hidden against his throat before saying,

"It's possible."

"Do you wanna get started on that now, later-"

"Tomorrow. When I'm more awake."

Chad smiled and slowly got to his feet, taking her with him as he waved at everyone and told them that he'd see them in the morning and then quickly left the room and headed upstairs.


	12. Chapter 12

**Lemon!**

**Spanish translations are-**

**Silly girl. **

**You taste sweet.**

**My woman. **

**My friend.**

**My lover, I need you wet for me.**

**I will give you my children.**

**I could never tire of this.**

**So damned good.**

**I think that was everything? If I misspelled anything in Spanish- you have my apologies for butchering the language.**

* * *

Chad woke up to the feel of Ichigo straddling his hips and her small hands gently exploring his muscular torso. Feeling his lips quirk up in a small smile, he cracked opened his eyes a sliver to watch her. She had this weird fascination with touching him. As if she was both curious and couldn't quite get enough of feeling him underneath her hands.

Chad usually tended to chalk up her actions to missing him over the months that he sometimes spent away from her. At least at first he had. But now... Now he wasn't really sure_ why_ she did it.

It wasn't as if she were being possessive of him- if she were, somebody would be bleeding somewhere in the room.

Her small hands slid further towards his chest, ghosting over his pecs over his nipples before she curved her fingers and lightly scraped her nails over the sensitive flesh. He jumped a little bit and was about to ask her what she was doing when he noted the secret little smile on her face and realized that she was teasing him.

"Palabras chica tonta." He growled as she raked her nails along his abs this time, causing him to twitch underneath her as she looked up at him. Her little smile growing faltering slightly as he reached up to grab her and then rolled her underneath him.

Ichigo let out a little yelp of surprise causing him to laugh once he had her underneath him.

"Chad?"

"Yeah."

"Nothing. I was just checking to make sure that you're awake."

He snorted softly and muttered again, _"Palabras chica tonta."_ Before leaning down to capture her lips with his own. Ichigo automatically parted her lips for him so that he could slip his tongue into her mouth and let him take the lead since he liked leading her when they were together like this.

Chad pulled back breaking the kiss and licked his lips hungrily, noting how sweet Ichigo tasted and muttered against her mouth, "Usted sabe dulce." as he lowered himself onto one elbow so that he could be closer to her. Settling his body carefully, and comfortably on top of her own with his hips resting firmly against the cradle of her thighs before skimming his lips along her cheek to her jaw and growled out with a roll of his hips against her.

"Va a ser bueno para mi."

Ichigo gasped and then whimpered as she felt him lightly running his fangs along the skin of her throat before he roughly sucked the tender flesh into his mouth, intent on leaving a mark on her that everyone would be able to see. The possessive side of him wanting to be able to show everyone that she was his woman.

Ichigo cried out softly and arched her back, giving him the chance to slip his free hand underneath her body so that he could hold her in that exact position as he released her and licked along the bruised area as he muttered, "Deletrear palabras."

Feeling Ichigo's small hands against his chest, he paused for a moment thinking that she was trying to tell him to back off for a moment, but instead she was trying to unbutton the shirt that she had slept in to give him better access to her body and gritted out, "Mi amigo." And took her mouth again as she lifted her arms away from her task to wind them around his neck, tangling her fingers in his shoulder length dark hair as he rolled his hips against hers again and groaned against her lips.

"Mi amante, quiero que te mojes para mi."

"I-I am." Ichigo stuttered out as he kissed her sweetly one last time before moving away from her lips again to lavish the rest of her with attention. He nipped, and licked and kissed at her body until it felt as if she were on fire and she was dripping for him.

He'd long removed his hand from her back so that he could tease her slick folds, lazily fucking her with his fingers until he was ready to replace them with his aching length before finally moving up off of her to ditch his clothing and took a moment to pause and look at her.

His Ichigo was beautiful like this. So wanton.

Her face was flushed, her lips swollen, her body crying out for completion. He _loved_ seeing her like this. Loved taking her apart so sweetly and holding her in his arms as she cried and trembled for him.

"Te voy a dar a mis hijos." He said as he lightly ran his hands up the length of her legs, parting them as he did so. Ichigo's breathing was coming out in fast little pants as he slowly began to push his way inside of her bit by bit.

Gritting his teeth at how tight she felt around him, he placed his hands on either side of her torso and experimentally rocked himself into her, delighting in the way that her eyes rolled back and the look of pleasure that flitted across her face as he leaned down and said in a breathless tone close to her ear, "You feel so good around me Ichigo. _Tan maldite beuno_. I can't get enough of it."

She didn't say anything, in truth she didn't really need to. He could both see and feel how much she was enjoying herself by her expression and the way that her small fingernails raked along the skin of his back, shoulders and arms as he finally bottomed out inside of her and growled out, "Nunca me canso de senitr esto. _Tan maldite bueno!_"

She cried out as his movements sped up a little bit and his arms locked around her, partially lifting her body up from the bed so that she was held against his chest and couldn't escape him as her legs wrapped around his waist. Her small nails bit into the skin of his shoulders hard enough to draw blood until she finally screamed for him and came apart in his arms with a sob.

His lips quirked into a dark smile against the side of her throat and peppered her face with sweet and loving kisses as her body milked him of his seed.

When Ichigo finally returned to her senses, she was leaning against his chest. Her legs straddling his hips as Chad lightly skimmed his fingertips along her back in feather light touches that tickled her a little bit and caused her to shudder against him.

"Chad?"

He hummed as she slowly turned her head so that she was looking up at him and noted that his eyes were glowing a vivid coppery red and his expression... He looked...so utterly _pleased_ with himself. It was a massive stroke to his masculine pride to be this content to have her in his arms and at his mercy, that she was loathe to say or do anything to make him let her go.

"Can you feel anything?"

"I can feel a lot when we're together like this." He said in a soft rumbling tone, referring to how he could feel her power brushing up against his own in a caress. He liked it when he could feel her like this. It went beyond the physical sensations that came from their love making and turned it into something deeper and much more primal and even more connected than usual.

"You know what I mean, Chad."

"I do. And there is something vague there. But I'm not all that certain what it is. We'll have to do this again as much as possible for the next month or two just to be sure."

Ichigo hummed and wiggled a little bit and let out a startled gasp when she felt him buck his hips before saying, "Two can play that game Ichigo and as you can tell, I'm far from finished with you just yet."

"O-Oh?" She stammered out as he leaned forward to brush his lips along her throat before opening his mouth and lightly biting down on her skin and growling softly. His voice husky with desire.

"I want you to ride me this time."

"Okay..." She squeaked as she felt his hands slide down to rest on her hips so that he could help her if she lost focus and her tempo faltered. She couldn't help it though. He really, really felt good inside of her like this. He always seemed to be able to go that much deeper inside if her when they were in this position.

Slipping her hands up to his shoulders, she leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth as she raised herself up and then sank back down on him eliciting a groan from him as his head fell back on his shoulders a little bit as he let his eyes drift closed and let Ichigo have her way with him.

* * *

"It's nearing ten in the morning." Steve said as he seated himself next to Bucky at the dining room table with a cup of coffee.

"So?"

"Shouldn't someone check on them or something? I mean, what if Ichigo took a turn for the worst or something?"

"They're _busy_ Steve. And I for one do not want to walk in on them..._doing stuff,_" Clint said with a slightly disturbed look. "Especially when Chad seems like the sort of guy that would rip someone's head off for so much as_ looking_ at his wife naked."

"I bet it's a view worth dying for though..." Bucky said with a sigh before he was hit on the head from behind. "Ow, hey!"

"That's my daughter you're talking about you little shit." Tony growled at him, causing the man to sink down in his seat a little bit, thoroughly chastised. "Sorry."

"You better be." Tony groused as he walked around the table and then took his own seat as Nat sighed and then stood up and walked into the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" Bruce asked curiously from the dining room.

"Looking for food. I don't know about the rest of you, but I think that we've waited long enough for them to join us for breakfast."

"Isn't that sort of...rude?"

"No ruder than the two of them fucking while they have company." Clint said.

"_Ew!_ Language you savage!" Tony hissed at the blond, not wanting anyone else to bring up the topic of his daughter screwing anyone. Much less that giant she who claimed to be her husband.

Clint opened his mouth to say something scathing to the brunette when Chad suddenly came bounding down the stairs, whistling You are my Sunshine. Everyone froze up as he walked by the dining room and into the kitchen and murmured an absent sounding greeting to Nat who just stood there looking uncomfortable with a bowl of eggs in her hands.

He reached out and gently took the bowl from her and set them on the counter before simply saying, "You looked like you were going to drop them."

"Oh. Sorry." Nat said as he hummed and then reached into the cabinet where the coffee cups were and pulled one out and fixed himself some coffee.

Once that was done, he turned back to her and frowned a little bit and then asked, "Did you need something else in the fridge?"

"Uh...food?" Nat said and then cringed a little bit at how rude she sounded. He raised a brow at her as he took a drink of his coffee before then motioning with his head for her to move out of the way. She stepped back without any further prompting and watched him move over to where she had been and bend down just enough to grab some things before asking.

"How does pancakes, sausage, bacon, and some veggie omelet's sound?"

"That would be fine. Thank you." Nat said politely as he laid everything out on the counter next to the stove and then shut the fridge.

"Alright then, why don't you go sit back down and I'll...get this started." Chad suggested in a gentle tone. Nat just stood there for a moment wondering what she was supposed to do. She wasn't quite used to his presence as of yet and he was significantly more intimidating than Ichigo appeared to be. So she was sort of struggling a little bit with proper protocols and fleeing from the room.

Should she be polite and offer to help him? Or do as he said and simply stay out of the man's way?

"Is something wrong, red?" Chad asked absently as he pulled a knife and a cutting board out and laid a few things out and carefully started to slice them up.

She jumped a little bit at the sound of his voice and then skittered out of the room, leaving him alone to stare after her for a moment before shrugging his shoulders and resuming his task.

He had just finished cutting up some red and yellow peppers, and had begun to prep a tomato and an onion for dicing when he stopped all of a sudden at the feel of a familiar presence closing in on the house. Stabbing the knife into the cutting board, he then grabbed a towel and wiped his hands on it and then moved to the door to unlock it.

His curiosity getting the best of him at the moment despite the fact that he knew that Ichigo was likely to throw a goddamned hissy fit the likes of which _no one_ had ever seen before as he poked his head out the door and quickly scanned the area.

Sure enough, just pulling up to the house was a frigging pink Cadillac driven by the very familiar- if somewhat older looking- TV star, Don Konoji from the show Spirit Hunter.

And right behind him...was what looked like a TV van with a camera crew.

"Uh-oh." Chad muttered to himself as he stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him and went to intercept the man and his camera crew before Ichigo could come outside and try to kill the man for invading their privacy.

* * *

"D-Did he just leave us here to _starve_?" Tony asked aloud in a aghast tone.

"Yes, yes I think that he did." Bruce said as he sipped on his coffee and pretended that he wasn't in some way disturbed by the fact that one of their hosts had left them to more or less fend for themselves. _Again_.

On one hand he could understand, that Chad and Ichigo fought monsters fulltime. And on the other- his years of living with Tony back in New York had spoiled him.

Bucky was across the room looking out the window, like he had been ever since Chad had stepped out on them, and blinked when he saw the giant heading towards the street to intercept an old man in his sixties or so and a camera crew.

"Um...guys...I think we're about to have some unwelcome company." He said uneasily.

Everyone was instantly on alert, their heads snapping up to look at the man as he shifted nervously from foot to foot as Steve demanded, "What do you mean?"

"Uh...well, there's some old guy outside with a camera crew."

_"What?!" _They all practically shouted in unison as Ichigo came into the room fresh out of the shower and stood in the doorway for a moment before asking in a soft, raspy tone.

"What the hell is with all of the shouting?"

Everyone looked at her with wide eyed mirroring expressions of alarm on their faces as Tony slowly stood up and looked around at his friends nervously, uncertain of how Ichigo would react to having a TV crew out in her yard.

"Uh..um, sweetheart-" He cringed a little bit at the term of endearment since he didn't feel right about using just yet. "There is...um...there's some p-people outside with a camera crew and uh-" Tony never got to finish what he was saying. Ichigo was across the room in the blink of an eye using a type of mind boggling speed that no one of them had ever even _seen_ before in a human.

Enhanced, superhuman, mutant or not.

Slipping slender fingers between the curtains to create a space so that she could use to check outside, she narrowed her turquoise eyes slightly and then turned on her heel and started to leave.

"Hey- wait! Ichigo! You can't just-" Tony started to protest, trying to remind his daughter that she and her hubby should be laying low from the government people that were supposed to be after them. He was beginning to fear that she may have forgotten about that fact.

Which was entirely possible given what he and the others had seen of her personality thus far.

"Calm down. The old man is a friend. I'm just going to go and see what he's here for." Ichigo tossed over her shoulder as she moved to the kitchen door and then slipped out of the house with a soft click of the door.

"Does anyone else here think that the kid and hubby dearest are the worst _hiders_ from the government ever?" Clint asked aloud. Tony, Steve, Bucky and Bruce all glared at the man as he sank down in his seat a little bit and muttered in a sulky tone, "I'm just saying."


	13. Chapter 13

Chad was baring his fangs at Konoji and growling and looking _none-too-pleased_ about the latest situation when Ichigo walked up to the two men and paused for a moment to absently reach out a hand and rub Chad's arm in a soothing fashion meant to calm him.

He glanced at her for a moment and then turned his attention back to the old man and all but snarled threateningly when Konoji shouted, "Here she is! The next generation spiritualist!"

Causing the camera crew to all but run up to the three of them and point their camera's at their faces.

Ichigo gave the elder a placid smile, while Chad outright _growled_ at a particularly man invasive man hovering within both of their personal space and wrapped his arms around her in a protective manner as Konoji smiled at them and then put a hand up to hide his mouth.

"Sorry about the camera's kids. I was in the middle of a shoot and decided to come here to talk to you both about something important. Just ignore them and act natural." Konoji said in a whisper tone knowing that the filming crew made the two uncomfortable.

"That's...easier said than done Don," Ichigo said awkwardly as she cast a worried glance at Chad as she felt his hold on her tighten slightly. Not enough to be considered painful, but close to it. "If you wanna talk then you should come inside. The camera crew stay out here though."

"Uh...but-"

"I don't want blood on my floor, Don." Ichigo said firmly.

"O-Oh. Yes, of course," Konoji stammered out as she gave Chad a pointed look in an effort to silently tell him that if the camera crew went into her home- he just might kill them. "Alright. I accept you're terms."

"Great!" Ichigo chirped as she lightly patted Chad's arms in an effort to get the man to let her go so that they could go back into the house. Chad loosened his hold on her enough to allow her to slip free of his hold and then turned on his heel and walked off.

Leaving Ichigo and Konoji to follow behind him.

Once inside the house, Chad walked off to finish preparing everyone's breakfast as Konoji finally asked, "Say Ichigo… Not to be offensive or anything- I'm totally digging the new look- but just what the hell did you do to yourself?"

"I'm surprised that you haven't started to dig around in my head just yet to figure it out." Ichigo said flippantly.

"Yes well, I'm sort of gun shy after the last time that I dug around in you're mind. I still don't have any clue just why you have a_ labyrinth_ and a _dragon_ guarding it. But I can surmise that it's some sort of protective measure to keep people like me out of your head."

"Well...you aren't totally wrong about that." Ichigo said as she rubbed the back of her neck with one hand as Steve and Clint and Bucky poked their heads out of the dining room to see what was going on.

"Kid?" Steve said in a questioning tone as he and the two other men eyed Konoji suspiciously. "Is everything alright?" He asked curiously.

"Everything is fine. Don here decided to drop by to talk about something important, that's all." Ichigo said as Konoji stepped away from her side for a moment to walk over to the men and introduce himself.

"Hello Captain Rogers, it's a pleasure to meet you sir." He said as he held his hand out to the blond. Steve looked somewhat taken aback but took the man's hand and shook it as he continued speaking, "My name is Don Konoji, I'm a world renowned psychic and medium and a local TV star."

"O-Oh," Steve said hesitantly, his blue eyes flickering back and forth between the elderly man and Ichigo. "I see. And how exactly do you know Ichigo?" Steve asked as the man then went on to introduce himself to Clint and Bucky.

"Konoji and I fought together when I was a kid." Ichigo explained.

"I wouldn't exactly put things like that, kid. It was more like, I got in the way and you used yourself as a human shield to protect me from those monsters and superhumans."

Ichigo waved him off. "I did nothing of the sort."

Konoji turned to the men and whispered, "She's being modest. She never really needed my help at all. She merely let me help so that I could learn my limitations and not get killed. I'm a tad bit ashamed to admit that, basically...she was training me to fight better than I already knew how to."

Steve looked at the man like he was crazy for a moment. As did Clint and Bucky as Tony's voice sounded behind them, making them jump a little bit.

"She was training you?" He asked in a skeptical tone.

Konoji smiled at them and then said, "Of course she was. The kid didn't let me out of her sight for a good long while after the way that we met. She couldn't take the chance of letting me know the truth of things and then simply turning me loose without any real way to defend myself. It would have not only been irresponsible of her, but cruel as well."

"What exactly was she training you to fight against?" Tony asked with a curious tilt of his head.

"_Hollows_, of course. And it's a good thing too. The knowledge came in handy more than once. And it helped me to help her save a lot of lives too."

"Wait- Y-You can fight them too?" Clint stammered out in disbelief.

Konoji smiled at them. "Of course I can. The kids and I are similar in some abilities and different in many others," His smile slipped a little bit after a moment or so and then he suddenly blurted out, "By the way, do any of you know why Ichigo feels so _strange_ to me?"

"Hn? Strange?" Clint asked curiously. His expression puzzled.

"Yeah," Konoji said with a nod of his head his expression thoughtful as he then said, "She doesn't feel quite human anymore. And it isn't the dark parasite that feeds on her heart and mind either. It's something totally different. Something….very powerful. Insanely so. I've only felt something like that once before some years ago when the town was almost destroyed by some egotistical psychopath on a power trip."

"Huh?!" Everyone almost shouted all at once.

"Oh... Y-You mean that she hasn't gotten around to tell you guys that the country was invaded by _interdimensional_ terrorists?" Konoji asked looking a tad bit alarmed as the men all sputtered, their expressions varying from outrage, anger, fear to horror. "You know what- forget that I even mentioned it. If she hasn't said anything yet then it's probably for a good reason." He said in a calm and soothing manner.

"Good reason? _Good reason!_ What the fuck kind of good reason could she possibly have for not saying anything about being invaded by people from another dimension?!" Tony practically roared. "For fuck's sake is she insane? How could she not say anything?"

"Because a lot of those people are her friends." Konoji said gently, still trying to calm the men down. He didn't want any of them getting up in Ichigo's face about something that happened so many years ago- it would be wrong for them to. "And because she fought to protect us all when the others came here intent on destroying us."

"She should have told someone." Tony snapped.

"She told the people that mattered at the time. I don't know if you know this, but she doesn't exactly trust a lot of people. Nor does she trust outsider's blindly. And for good reason. Telling the wrong person something could have monumental consequences on her, her family and her friends. She told the people that already knew or had an idea about the travelers. She wanted us to be on guard against anymore coming here and starting stuff."

"Well she still should have told someone." Tony growled, not willing to let the matter go.

"Oh sure, tell some random people that we've got interdimensional travelers- and watch the world erupt into utter chaos and war. _Brilliant idea_. Did it never occur to you that her life is literally our shield and sword? She's been fighting them for so long, that she practically is one now. The only difference is that she can beat the hell out of anyone stupid enough to step out of line and threaten Karakura town, her family, friends and even the rest of the world."

"I don't care-"

"Of course you don't. What's a few hundred million _innocent_ lives of an ancient race older than our own- as long as you're comfortable with the blood being shed..." Konoji said in with a sneer before going on to say in a disappointed tone,"You know, you aren't the kind of person that Ichigo should be letting into her home much less her life. People with such a narrow view of what's _right_ and _wrong_ can get the girl and everyone dear to her killed. All over nothing more than you're differences in what you perceive as right or wrong."

"Don?" Ichigo called out from the kitchen, "Do you want some coffee?"

"That would be nice, thank you Ichigo." He called back to her from over his shoulder before then saying to Tony, "You know, if I had had a kid like her- I'd be nothing but _proud_ of her. She grew up much better than one would assume of a little hooligan. She grew up knowing compassion, strength and kindness... After all, if you think about things- and I mean _really_ think about them- Ichigo never had to do anything to help anyone, much less protect anyone."

"She could have been selfish and stayed out of everything and simply let the world burn. It would have been nothing for her to do so. But she's a firm believer in responsibility. Those with power and authority have to have responsibility. People who are born with abilities should never use it in bad ways. They have a responsibility both to themselves and those that can't defend themselves- to use those abilities to protect, and help them. Speaking of- excuse me. I have to speak with Ichigo." Konoji said as he turned and walked off.

Once in the kitchen he seated himself at the island across from Ichigo and Chad and smiled faintly as the young woman set a mug of coffee down in front of him. "Two sugars and cream. Right?"

"You know, I never will figure out how you do that."

"Probably not." Was all that Ichigo could manage to say before she was sitting down on the other side of the island with her own cup and waited patiently for him to start speaking.

"So...uh... D-Did you know that the last episode of my series Spirit Hunter is coming up?"

Ichigo straightened her spine in her seat as Chad paused his movements at fixing some food and turned to look at the old man oddly. Shock flitting across his face. "No, we didn't know. You're such an energetic guy that it's difficult to see you're show ending. I mean it's been what? Fifteen years?"

"Closer to twenty actually." Don supplied helpfully. "But who's really counting?"

"You are, apparently. What's going on? Why is the show ending?"

"Well for starters- I've been diagnosed with cancer. I-It's spread pretty far and I'm not as young as I used to be either. The doctors gave me about eight months. And it's already been five. I've been trying to wrap up my personal affairs for longer than I should have been. But I finally got everything done with the exception of my show and coming to see you kids."

"I-Is there nothing that anyone can do?"

"No. I'm afraid not. And I've had to stop most of my treatments a while back because they were making me sicker. And that's sort of what I wanted to speak to you about-"

Ichigo muttered an unintelligible, "Huh?"

"I want you to continue my work as the Spirit Hunter."

This time it was Chad's turn to mutter unintelligibly. _"Huh?"_

"You're faces are funny kids," Konoji chuckled in amusement. "But in all seriousness, I've been working on a few projects over the last seven or eight years or so. One is a camera that will allow Hollows to be filmed and recorded. And another is sort of a video series that I'm basing after you kids and you're friends. I'm toying with the idea of calling it, Bleach..."


	14. Chapter 14

**People are so darn judgy. **

**I'll admit that I wasn't really thinking straight when I wrote that last chap. I was exhausted and decided to test the waters a little bit. And have been sort of chewed out _twice_ for bringing religon into the story.**

**So I'm redoing the whole damned chapter to get the story back on track-ish. Disregard the former chap. And I apologize if I offended anyone. **

**I'm proud of the fact that I'm a godless heathen, but that's no excuse for offending anyone who is Christian or other. **

* * *

Ichigo rubbed at an eye brow with one of her fingertips and scrunched up her nose as Konoji stared at her hard. The man's mind and mouth needed some damned filters.

One moment they were talking about his 'Bleach' project that he wanted her and the others to help with by starring in and recreating some of their most epic battles, and such. And the next he was blurting out the question, "Why do you feel so... _weird_ to me?"

In front of her _dad_ and his...very curious/pissed off friends.

Shifting a little bit in her seat as she found herself being scrutinized and simultaneously glared at, she did her best to hide her discomfort and fidgeting. As Chad thinned his lips in displeasure at Konoji's question and waited for her to think up a reply as Konoji then went on to say, "I mean, you don't feel totally human anymore. And I know it isn't...that...parasite that feeds off of you- because I can barely feel it anymore. It's...something different. Something almost divine."

Chad opened his mouth to tell the elder to stop asking fucking questions when he was sharply elbowed by Ichigo in _warning_. Causing the man to snap his mouth shut automatically and cast a displeased look her way as she said, "Well, it's no real surprise that you're picking up on something. You are after all both a psychic and a medium. You can sense and see all things good and bad. Angelic, and demonic. So you tell me- why do I feel weird to you."

"You're answering me with another question and a few hints... I'm guessing it's part of the reason why you and a lot of your friends sort of dropped off of the map a while back. To hide it."

Ichigo's lips twitched as she tongued one of her canine teeth and gave him a pointed look and reached up and moved some of her hair back away from her neck and focused some of her power into making the holy mark placed on her body, visible to the man.

She suspected that he'd have a small inkling of what it meant, though it wasn't something that humans were supposed to be privy too.

She knew the exact moment that Konoji saw it, his expression was so comically funny that Chad made a rumbling sound of laughter. It was soft and slightly suppressed. But it was there.

"_Holy_\- Is that what I think it is?!" Konoji finally demanded as he jumped up from his seat and pointed at her. "T-That's the same mark that was mentioned in the ancient texts and stuff entombed in-"

_"Konoji!"_ Both Chad and Ichigo said in unison causing the man to snap his mouth shut and simply look at the two.

"Only the people I choose to show this mark, will ever see it. And since you seem to know what it is... I shouldn't have to explain just why it's a secret, and that you should _keep you're mouth shut_."

"Ah..._no_. No you do not. I understand very well the full ramifications of other's seeing and knowing. I'll be quiet. Just..." He made a weird, fangirl-esque sound and practically vibrated where he stood causing both Chad and Ichigo to roll their eyes at his antics, despite how amusing they thought them to be when Tony's angry voice demanded,

"What mark? What are you people talking about?"

"Nothing." Ichigo, Chad and Konoji said together hoping that the man would drop it. And he did.

However instead of asking about the mark again, he decided to go another route. "So...Konoji there told us that you've been letting interdimensional travelers come and go and try to take over the world. Care to explain?"

"No."

"No?" Tony said in a mocking tone. "No you don't have to explain to us, lowly little human's? Or no you don't have to explain shit because you don't care-"

"I'm going to stop you right there," Ichigo said, in a harsh tone. "Because as much as I do enjoy giving people enough rope to hang themselves with- Something tells me you think that you _actually_ have some weird right to speak to me in such a way, when you don't. So I'll say this once- and you should really listen because I won't be repeating myself. Drop the subject. It's none of your _concern_ or_ affair_-"

"Excuse you! Non of our concern or affair? How dare you think that you have the right to make a call like that! This is our world-"

"Maybe so- but we wouldn't have a world to call our own if not for the travelers!"

_"What?"_ Steve squawked out of the blue. His tone slightly confused/alarmed as he asked, "What do you mean that we wouldn't have a world to call our own if not for them?"

"Oh for fuck's sake," Ichigo muttered as Chad let out a growl before she continued on to say, "Where do you think human's come from in the first place? Evolution- no. A species such as ours evolves very little. And the ones that do manage to evolve, are usually tracked like animals for study."

Tony muttered something particularly rude under his breath, and got a glare from the woman as she went on to say, "You think it's easy to make such a decision for every man, woman, and child in the known world? Cause it isn't. The only reason that I can-" Tony muttered something rude again and Ichigo picked up her coffee mug and threw it at his head and screamed,_ "I said shut up!" _

Tony barely managed to dodge the mug before it slammed into the wall behind him and shattered into pieces, causing the genius to slowly turn wide, shocked eyes on Ichigo as she growled out.

"The _only_ reason I made that decision is because I know what they are capable of. I _know_ all of it. The experiments, the deaths, the mysterious disappearances, the cross breeding-"

"T-The what?" Clint squeaked out. His mind latching onto the words 'cross breeding' in an effort to calm himself. However it just seemed to alarm him more.

"Cross breeding, you fools. Travelers and humans. More than a third of the population born in this day and age is part alien or traveler. _A third._ That includes me, my dad, everyone in this room- If anyone outside of me and my immediate circle of friends ever found out about them, over a third of the population would be on the fucking_ chopping block_. Mass genocide the likes of which would make Hitler look like a mere child at play by comparison, would occur."

"I mean, do you honestly think if anything happened to the friends, neighbors, and families of the travelers- that they would take you're stupidity lying down? Take it from someone who has fought them and their strongest on more than _one_ occasion! Global war would break out between us and them! Leading to catastrophes and disasters the likes of which would tear this world apart! And believe me, as someone who knows exactly what they are capable of- _you would not stand a chance against them_."

"So when I make a decision to do something for the continuation of mankind- whether you lot deserve it or not- I do so knowing exactly what can happen if such information get's into the hands of the power mad, the greedy and the ignorant. Now you can either respect my decision, or you can act like an _idiot_ and get yourself killed for nothing. Either way, you're going to sit down and _shut up_. This isn't up for any further discussion and it isn't up for debate. So just keep your nose out of it and leave it up to the people who are actually equipped to handle it."

Tony and several of the others gaped at her in slack jawed_ stunned_ disbelief as she then turned to Konoji and said, "Don, I'll talk to some of the others about your Bleach project and see what they think about it. I for one would love to recreate some of those fights and battles. Chad? What do you want to do?"

"I'm in," Chad rumbled as he crossed his arms over his chest before saying. "I go where you go, Ichigo."

"Alright! We have two people on board so far. I'll talk to the others and let you know in a week, okay Don?"

"Uh..yeah sure." Konoji hesitantly said as he stared at the woman mutely.

He certainly hadn't expected to learn so much about his young friend and her new found abilities upon coming for this visit, but now that he did know. He could only respect her even more for the undoubtedly difficult and painful choices that she had likely made just to get this far.

Once again, Ichigo had managed to impress him.

And he was so, so very proud of her and grateful to her for everything that she had done.


	15. Chapter 15

Once Konoji and his camera crew was gone, Ichigo was washing the dishes while Chad hovered close by her.

Concern etched into his face as she thought about Konoji- maybe she shouldn't have- but before her old friend had left she had used a small bit of her power to _help_ take away as much of the pain that was slowly building up within his body as possible. Her only thought at the time had been to make him more comfortable so that he wouldn't struggle to fight so hard when the end came.

Because no one deserved to writhe in agony for weeks, months, and sometimes even years before their bodies completely expired on them. In her opinion, having someone- no,_ anyone_ suffer so much was more than a little bit beyond inhumane and cruel.

She paused her movements with a glass plate in her hand and asked softly, "I didn't do anything wrong. Right?"

"No. You didn't do anything wrong. It's normal to want to ease someone's suffering when they hurt." Chad said gently, his arms suddenly wrapping around her from behind and pulling her back against his front and just held her.

"What am I suppose to do about dad and his friends?"

"Dunno. What do you want to do?"

"I have an idea or two but... I doubt that they would trust me very much after our screaming match earlier." Ichigo said as she leaned back against him with a tired sigh.

Chad made a humming sound and was about to ask what her plan was when Tony came stomping into the kitchen and all out _growled_ at them. "You're friend gone?" The two looked at him owlishly as he then continued on. "Good. Because I would hate to _disillusion_ the old sap for being taken in by a couple of-" Chad peeled his lips back from his fangs and snarled out a warning. But the man was too pissed to bother listening, even if it was for his own well being and overall health and safety. "Deranged lunatic's playing at being gods. I mean really, how damned _stupid_ are you two-"

Ichigo looked up at Chad as he growled again, his expression going from warning to threatening in zero point two seconds as he abruptly released her and moved to do something to Tony. Whom by this time had figured out that Chad wasn't just warning him to back off, he was intent on _making_ him.

The smaller man made an undignified squawking sound as Chad reached out and grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him up over his head by it. "Hey! Stop!"

"How dare you." Chad snarled at him, his dark eyes glittering with malice as several of Tony's friends all came into the kitchen to see what was going on. "How dare you say something so damned cruel- _Merchant of death,_" Tony's eyes went wide at his former name. "How dare you judge her for doing what she feels is right and condemn her for her sacrifices as if they mean nothing!" Chad shook Tony enough to make the man's teeth rattle. "You who have destroyed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives- And killed just as many- intentionally and unintentionally- think that you have _any_ goddamned right to come into you're daughters home and judge her." Chad dropped the man and watched with cold eyes as he landed hard on his ass on the floor before spitting angrily, _"You are beneath our_ _contempt."_ And then moving to walk away from the shaken man before he did something that Ichigo would never forgive him for.

Sighing. Ichigo reached up to massage her temples in an effort to stop her head from hurting so damned much as Chad resumed his previous hovering while glaring at Tony as if trying to will his head to explode while Ichigo moved to check on the man and asked, "Are you okay?"

Tony's eyes flickered away from Chad to her and then back again in unease. "I'm not hurt- just..."

"Your pride."

"Yeah." Tony said warily. Ichigo thinned her lips and reached out and gently grasped him by the arm and pulled him up off of the floor. He was rattled by Chad's aggression, and rightly so. Still...

"Chad, why don't you go take a walk. Maybe drop by Hime's and check on her. She might be home alone again today and might need some help moving some furniture or something. You know, since she's pregnant." Ichigo suggested in a soft tone. Chad's eyes never left Tony, though his glare did lessen a little bit at the mention of Orihime and her pregnancy. He made a rumbling sound and shifted his weight a little bit before reluctantly agreeing with her suggestion with a nod of his head.

"I'll go as long as they don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."

"I'm sure that they won't."

"I don't want you upset. Stress isn't good for you. And it could push our plans for a baby back a few weeks or even months."

"I know."

"I'll check on Issun and the girls too. Maybe bring them over with Orihime for lunch."

"That would be fine. I have a few new food recipes that I'd like to try." Ichigo said with a smile. Chad nodded his head again in acceptance and then turned to Tony with one final glare before he leaned down and gently kissed her on the lips and then made a beeline for the door.

Once he was gone, everyone looked back at Ichigo as she said softly, "I'm sorry about what he just did to you Tony. He was out of line." Tony stared at his daughter for a moment before waving off her apology.

"I was sort of out of line too. If anyone had ever talked to Pepper like that, I would have thrown them form the top of my building."

"It's no excuse for how he reacted," Ichigo said before then going on to say, "And I owe you an apology as well. I didn't mean to loose my temper before. I understand very well you're concerns about the travelers. I do. But at the same time you don't have all the facts needed to make a rational decision about them."

Tony regarded her quietly, unsure of what to think at the moment.

"As I said before, you aren't equipped to handle them. I meant that and for good reason. You and you're friends despite you're heroics, and enhancements and technology- simply aren't any match for them should they decide to invade."

"The old guy," Tony started to say when Ichigo cut him off by saying the man's name. "Yeah him. He mentioned before that you're life is literally our 'shield and sword'. What exactly did he mean by that?"

Ichigo's lips twitched a little bit. "It means that the travelers owe me several dozen or so debts..."

"Why?"

"Because I've helped them to fight off invaders of their own. Terrorists, mass murderers, mad scientists, government officials that work outside of their laws. I've helped to protect them, their people and their world from being wiped out several times over. I've saved some of the remaining nobles from being injured and killed- helped to establish new laws. So they owe me and my friends a considerable debt of gratitude that they may never be able to repay in my lifetime or several others."

"So you're life really is a shield?"

"Pretty much." Ichigo said with a shrug of her shoulders.

"So where does that leave us and our concerns?" Tony asked.

Ichigo worried her lower lip for a moment and then finally replied, "The only way that I can think of to address you're concerns and let you see that you shouldn't worry so much is to take you to their world and let you meet them and see how they live for yourself. We'll need special permission to get onto the base, but getting there, simply to explore a little bit should be fine."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Depends on if you go there looking for trouble. But arming yourself wouldn't be a bad idea. As long as it's something small and not something terribly big, easy to steal or highly weaponized."

"Just something to defend ourselves with."

"Basically."

Tony nodded and then took a moment to activate his gauntlets and held one up for her to see and asked, "Are these okay?"

Ichigo studied them for a moment with a critical eye before saying, "You can't use excessive force on anyone."

"That's fine. I can set them on stun only."

"Very well. Let me make a call to the head captain and see if they would mind opening a portal for us after lunch. I think Chad and Orihime might want to come with us when we go. And you might want to talk to your friends too. If they're okay with going for a short visit, then they need to prepare themselves too."

"Alright then, I'll go...take care of that." Tony said as she nodded and slowly walked away.


End file.
